Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!lll-lcc!mordor!sri-spam!rutgers!mit-eddie!genrad!decvax!decwrl!pyramid!voder!blia!forrest From: forrest@blia.BLI.COM (Jon Forrest) Newsgroups: comp.lang.c Subject: Re: C Review Message-ID: <1462@blia.BLI.COM> Date: Wed, 14-Jan-87 18:29:48 EST Article-I.D.: blia.1462 Posted: Wed Jan 14 18:29:48 1987 Date-Received: Thu, 15-Jan-87 19:02:43 EST References: <2313@brl-adm.ARPA> Organization: Britton Lee, Los Gatos, CA Lines: 56 I do freelance technical reviewing for several publishers and have some feel for what goes into such reviews. I think the major reason for your surprise is because the reviewer that examined your book (not me, by the way) may have been including people who program in C on micros in his comments. These people don't always have the same level of experience as Unix (or VMS) hackers. Anyway, I've added a few well chosen comments to those of your reviewer. > > "... 95% of all C programmers couldn't give you a good > explanation of the term lvalue..." > Probably less than 95% but more than 50% > "... Switch/case could be classified as rarely used and should be > kept till later. > Completely wrong > "... very few C programmers know much about sizeof..." > Probably wrong > "... 99% of all professional C programmers have no idea > what typedef is all about, couldn't care less and probably > won't ever need it." > Again, probably less than 99% but more than 50% > "... 99% of all professional C programmers have no idea > what the comma operator is all about, couldn't care less and > probably won't ever need it." > Again, probably less than 99% but more than 50% > "... Leave the comma operator altogether. An intro book is no > place for obscure and unmaintainable tricks..." Depending on how complete your book is intented to be, this may be a good idea. However, C is such a small language that there really is no reason to leave anything out. > > "... Pointers to functions ... few C programmers understand > them or would ever need them..." Completely wrong > > "... a C programmer never needs to know what a byte is..." Completely wrong Jon Forrest ucbvax!mtxinu!blia!forrest