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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