Slashdot Mirror
The New C Standard
derek_farn writes "At a very late stage Addison Wesley decided not to publish my book, 'The New C Standard: An economic and cultural commentary'. Now that the copyright issues have been sorted out I am making the pdf freely available. You can download the pdf (mirror 1). The organization is rather unusual in that the commentary covers each sentence of the C Standard (actually the latest draft of C0X, excluding library) one by one (all 2022 of them). One major new angle is using the results from studies in cognitive psychology to try and figure out how developers comprehend code. The aim being to try and produce some coding guidelines that reduce costs (ie, reduce the time needed and bugs created). The book also contains the results of lots of measurements (over 400 figures and
tables) in an attempt to back the arguments being made -- another unusual feature since most software related books don't publish any figures to back up what they say. Other subsections discuss common implementations and differences between the latest draft standard and C90/C++. More background on the project is available from the Inquirer.
C is over with already, geez. Slow, cumbersome, and nobody has a compiler for it. You should be switching to Java by now. It's fast, portable, and the JVM is everywhere. The Novell JVM is the fastest. Dennis Ritchie's time is past. Let the dinosaur turn into oil already and upgrade to the technology that will take us into the 22nd century and beyond. JAVA!
There is another mirror of the pdf here thanks to the folk at mirrordot.
...going to another publisher?
I used to be a development editor (10-15 years ago) - a real one; i.e. a software developer recruited to improve developer-level books, not a editor carrying the title. I would have been interested in providing up-front assistance to you and helping you get it ready for someone else. Most of the non-textbook (IDG, Que, SAMS, etc.) publishers prefer to have things come in chapter-by-chapter so things can be directed along the way, but with feedback prior to submittal, you could have gotten around that. You could have made some money that way.
So maybe it is a guideline to hobby C coders, new learners, anyone who doesn't use C as professional??
I think there is a target audience, perhaps you don't fall in the category but that doesn't mean that everyone who dabbles with C is Uber-Geek..
-if at first you don't succeed, stay the heck away from paragliding.
What you really need is a new language.
Before modding me down, think about it. Any programming language is about solving problems, and problems you solve today are different from the ones someone had back in the days of C creation. Moreover, the ways you deal with programming changed as well. IT industry needs new languages, including low-level and compiled ones.
No. This is obviously the NEW C standard they've been talking about. I haven't read the article, but clearly they've loosend up on punctuation. Also, any comparisons to directives starting with MAX must automatically default to a "less than" comparison.
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
Have you considered making the book available through http://www.lulu.com/? It's a print-on-demand service that allows people an easy way to get a properly bound printed copy of your book, and for you optionally to get some money for your efforts. No cost to you to get set up either.
No, I don't work for lulu or have any financial connections to them. I just know one of the guys that works there (Jeremy Hogan, formerly from Red Hat).