Talk:The C Programming Language

Translation mess

If somebody write the spanish translation of this page, please say in big words that the spanish translation is a total mess and insult, it is totally non-understandable, even a non-english speaker can understand it better in english than its translation to spanish, i have buy it and i have lost time trying to read it, i have needed some days that with "arreglo" they means "array" (a total different word, apart that these parts needs to remain in english)

If you have a Wikipedia account (which is unknown, as you didn't sign your comment), and know Spanish at a professional or first language level, you can, and, in fact, should edit corrections into the Spanish version of this article. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia where anyone with sufficient knowledge of a subject can update an article with new facts, as long as they're properly sourced from a reputable source. Julesmazur (talk) 02:58, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Disambig needed?

Is a disambig really needed when the first sentence makes it patently clear that this is about the book about the language and links to the language? I see no advantage for the disambig over not having one, and it clutter's the page and is redundant. I didn't revert because I'd prefer to come to an understanding. - Taxman 17:46, Mar 21, 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Taxman. - Bevo 18:28, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Well, someone reverted and I'm in no mood to start an edit war. I see your point. - EatMyShortz 03:02, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I still think disambig is advisable. If not, I suggest adding "(book)" to make "The C Programming Language (book)" the title of this article (which is about a book), in order to to distinguish it from "C (programming language)" -- which is the title of a separate article about a programming language.

I'm with you on this one. Julesmazur (talk) 20:07, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

How do you know this?

You say: As of 2006, there is no new edition covering C99. How do you know this? Is there an Internet article (because I can't find one)?

K&R 2 was the last K&R published. There is no seminal book covering C99, and there won't be, as Dennis M. Ritchie has passed away (in October 2011). If you're arguing that there were subsequent editions of K&R, the burden of proof is on you. Provide evidence supporting a 3rd and/or 4th edition. Julesmazur (talk) 02:53, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Just to clarify, this book was written by Kernighan and Ritchie while they were employed by AT&T Bell Labs, and as a result AT&T Bell Labs holds the copyright, and as Ritchie has passed away and Kernighan hasn’t been with AT&T Bell Labs (now Nokia Bell Labs) in years, it is even less likely there will be a follow-on edition to this book. (In the meantime Kernighan has moved on to other languages, more recently embracing Go, for example)  —PowerPCG5 (talk) 02:27, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Informal wording

The influence of The C Programming Language on programmers, a generation of which "cut their teeth" on C in universities and industry [...]

I'm not a native English speaker, and I don't understand what "cutting their teeth" means. Could somebody please replace this expression with a more formal, understandable form? rbonvall 12:04, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

It means to learn something at the beginning of one's career, influencing one's future habits. It's a widespread English idiom that can be found in good English dictionaries under "cut", and it's the best phrasing to use in this sentence, so I don't think it should be changed personally. Redquark 18:00, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Babies cut their teeth in a fairly predictable order...~~ Xb2u7Zjzc32 (talk) 06:53, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

"white book" not "white bible"?

Ritchie refers to this as the "white book", at http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/chist.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bdelacey (talk • contribs) 00:32, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

External links out of date

External links need to be updated or removed. http://cm.bell-labs.com no longer contains any of the four external links posted. I'll see if I can find correct links later today. Blutrot (talk) —Preceding undated comment was added at 00:26, 12 October 2008 (UTC).

This book is crap!

Most of the programing examples are useless programs.
The EOF streak is absolute bull because you can't generate an EOF with a keyboard.
The ctrl+c is terminating a running program and not an EOF.
READ UNTIL P33.
Let's see if that will change.
--Jangirke (talk) 07:10, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

@Jangirke, Actually, you can generate an EOF character. Usually in Unix and Unix-like operating systems, terminal is initialized with Control-D (a.k.a. EOT) as EOF. Dannyniu (talk) 04:12, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

It's usually not worth responding to an old comment, particularly one that is unrelated to improving the article. However, as you say, pressing Ctrl-D gives EOF on Unix systems, and Ctrl-Z does the same on Windows systems (although you need to press Enter after the Ctrl-Z). The examples are not useless. Johnuniq (talk) 04:31, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

Somebody was angry? Actually it's the book's labs that helped make it such a hit (and educated so many). So much so that a 'C Answer Book' was later published. Several consultant firms kept their own copies of the entire completed labs on hand as reference. BWK's work here cannot be complimented highly enough. One must seriously call into question the above statement.

Hello, World

"Hello, World" is a punchline in The National Anthem - Robert Klein 1974 Mind over Matter - AllMusic pre-dating the book. ~~ Xb2u7Zjzc32 (talk) 06:49, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

External links modified

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A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• Hello World Brian Kernighan 1974.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 14:21, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• Hello World Brian Kernighan 1974.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 10:19, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

Disambiguation tag

Undid this edit by User:Pppery to restore the disambiguation tag. This tag is required because at one point “C programming language” used to redirect to this article, when it should have redirected to the programming language itself. By removing this disambiguation tag, a lot of search engines such as DuckDuckGo over the past month have been redirecting searches for “C programming language” to this article rather than to the article on the programming language, which restoring the tag will hopefully fix back to the way things were over time. Thanks  —PowerPCG5 (talk) 02:13, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of second paragraph of lede

I removed two ill-expressed and irrelevant sentences from the lede. In fact, though, the whole of the second paragraph of the lede is irrelevant to the topic of this article, which is the K&R book, not the language. I propose to remove that paragraph. -- Jmc (talk) 23:55, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

You are correct. That was added earlier this month and is not appropriate. Johnuniq (talk) 03:01, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

@Johnuniq Thanks! I didn't realise it was so recent. I'll now go ahead and remove it. -- Jmc (talk) 04:08, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

Editions

There are three editions not two:

first edition aka "old testament" second edition first printing "apocrypha". ANSI C draft standard second edition later printings "new testament". With some further edits for differences between the draft and final standard.

Simply calling it "second edition" is misleading - it's second edition, second and later printings. https://groups.google.com/g/comp.std.c/c/ywRO67MgwBg 92.41.4.237 (talk) 00:45, 11 January 2023 (UTC)