Questions for the major contributors to comp.lang.c.

What C books do you have?

What C books have you read?

Which algorithm book is your favorite?

What resources that you find particularly useful, beside comp.lang.c
and its FAQ?

I ask the above questions mainly to see what I lack. And the answer
may other newbies as well by letting people know what "weapons"
have been proved to be useful. I might have asked too many questions
these days, but I promise I will reduce them to less than 2 daily from
now on.

istillshine@gmail.com wrote:
> Questions for the major contributors to comp.lang.c.
>
> What C books do you have?

"The C Programming Language," Kernighan and Ritchie (original)
"C: A Reference Manual," Harbison and Steele
"C Traps and Pitfalls," Koenig
"The Standard C Library," Plauger

> What C books have you read?

As above.

> Which algorithm book is your favorite?

"The Art of Computer Programming," Knuth

> What resources that you find particularly useful, beside comp.lang.c
> and its FAQ?

The wide world and all therein. (Really, the question
is too broad to admit of a useful answer.)

> I ask the above questions mainly to see what I lack. And the answer
> may other newbies as well by letting people know what "weapons"
> have been proved to be useful. I might have asked too many questions
> these days, but I promise I will reduce them to less than 2 daily from
> now on.

Learn Lisp. You may not use it much, but it will improve
your use of other programming languages.

--
Eric Sosman
esosman@ieee-dot-org.invalid

On Apr 12, 12:02 pm, Eric Sosman <esos...@ieee-dot-org.invalid> wrote:

> > Which algorithm book is your favorite?
>
> "The Art of Computer Programming," Knuth
>

My head ached when I read this book in a library. I quit after
reading several pages, feeling I was so intelligently inferior. I
could not understand why the author uses an assembly-like language to
describe algorithms. C would have been a much better choice.

I heard the author himself is a good programmer. I believe he must
have good reasons to do it. But I really cannot comprehend the
reasons outlined in the preface of his book.

What supported you to continue reading his book? I am thinking of
buying a copy of it though.

<istillshine@gmail.com> wrote in message news:
> Questions for the major contributors to comp.lang.c.
>
> What C books do you have?
>
>
> What C books have you read?
>
> Which algorithm book is your favorite?
>
> What resources that you find particularly useful, beside comp.lang.c
> and its FAQ?
>
> I ask the above questions mainly to see what I lack. And the answer
> may other newbies as well by letting people know what "weapons"
> have been proved to be useful. I might have asked too many questions
> these days, but I promise I will reduce them to less than 2 daily from
> now on.
>
>
Try Basic Algorithms, by me.
It's still in first edition so there are a few glitches, some of which have
been pointed out on this ng. However it covers a lot of practical material
you won't find in other algorithm books.

--
Free games and programming goodies.
http://www.personal.leeds.ac.uk/~bgy1mm

istillshine@gmail.com wrote:
> On Apr 12, 12:02 pm, Eric Sosman <esos...@ieee-dot-org.invalid> wrote:
>
>>> Which algorithm book is your favorite?
>> "The Art of Computer Programming," Knuth
>
> My head ached when I read this book in a library. I quit after
> reading several pages, feeling I was so intelligently inferior. I
> could not understand why the author uses an assembly-like language to
> describe algorithms. C would have been a much better choice.

Then you have failed to grasp his purposes, which include
(among other things) quantitative comparisons of implementations.
You may have heard that Quicksort and Heapsort are both O(N logN)
algorithms (on the average); this much needs only a rather loose
notion of "time." You may also have heard that Quicksort is
faster than Heapsort (usually), but how could you justify such a
statement by analyzing C implementations of both? Is ++i faster
than i++? Is x=a?b:c faster than x=bc[!a]? You cannot attack
such questions from the standpoint of the C language, but only
from particular implementations of it (and you will get different
answers each time).

In any case, though, you didn't ask for recommendations of
books that you would find easy to understand; you asked "Which
algorithm book is your favorite?" And I answered.

> I heard the author himself is a good programmer.

Do you know of any other programmer who gives away code and
then pays money to people who find bugs in it? (I suppose that
in his case the financial hardship may not be severe; I've got
one of his checks in a frame on my wall, and I bet many others
go similarly uncashed.)

> I believe he must
> have good reasons to do it. But I really cannot comprehend the
> reasons outlined in the preface of his book.
>
> What supported you to continue reading his book? I am thinking of
> buying a copy of it though.

I have been reading and re-reading and re-re-reading TAOCP
for more than thirty years, *because* my head sometimes aches
from the strain. (I admit, though, that I haven't had the nerve
to pick up "Concrete Mathematics.")

--
Eric Sosman
esosman@ieee-dot-org.invalid

<istillshine@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:03c26734-96c2-4c62-b91f-f77a290197da@k1g2000prb.googlegroups.com...
> On Apr 12, 12:02 pm, Eric Sosman <esos...@ieee-dot-org.invalid> wrote:
>
>> > Which algorithm book is your favorite?
>>
>> "The Art of Computer Programming," Knuth
>>
>
> My head ached when I read this book in a library. I quit after
> reading several pages, feeling I was so intelligently inferior. I
> could not understand why the author uses an assembly-like language to
> describe algorithms. C would have been a much better choice.

According to the author, the current language of choice changes every few
years, and he didn't want to have to keep revising all his examples. And at
the time it wouldn't have been C, probably some Algol-class language. There
were a few other reasons too.

But I agree, any proper language would have been a considerable improvement
on MIX or MIXAL.

--
Bart

On Sat, 12 Apr 2008 15:21:55 -0400, Eric Sosman wrote:

> istillshine@gmail.com wrote:
>> On Apr 12, 12:02 pm, Eric Sosman <esos...@ieee-dot-org.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>>> Which algorithm book is your favorite?
>>> "The Art of Computer Programming," Knuth
(...)
>> I heard the author himself is a good programmer.
>
> Do you know of any other programmer who gives away code and
> then pays money to people who find bugs in it? (I suppose that
> in his case the financial hardship may not be severe; I've got
> one of his checks in a frame on my wall,

That is impressive!


> and I bet many others
> go similarly uncashed.)
>

I'll bet there aren't *many* others. But of those that are, I would
very much doubt if any would be cashed at all.


--
ROT-13 email address to reply

On 4ÔÂ12ÈÕ, ÏÂÎç11ʱ54·Ö, istillsh...@gmail.com wrote:
> Questions for the major contributors to comp.lang.c.
>
> What C books do you have?
>
> What C books have you read?
>
> Which algorithm book is your favorite?
>
> What resources that you find particularly useful, beside comp.lang.c
> and its FAQ?
>
> I ask the above questions mainly to see what I lack. And the answer
> may other newbies as well by letting people know what "weapons"
> have been proved to be useful. I might have asked too many questions
> these days, but I promise I will reduce them to less than 2 daily from
> now on.

I think the best algorithm book is "Introduction to Algorithms" by MIT
Press. It is my first algorithm book and it describe algorithms by
pseudo-code. It is easy to understand.

C book -- The C Programming Language, of cource.