J
Jirka Klaue
R. Rajesh Jeba Anbiah said:
And Richard said that you are not in the position to decide who is an expert.
Jirka
And Richard said that you are not in the position to decide who is an expert.
Jirka
S
Slartibartfast
Believe it or not it achieves exactly the same result as using the flame thrower,
but without pi$$ing people off. You're hardly being spoon fed if you get
no response at all, are you?
And how exactly does flaming "confront" ignorance? It is the Internet equivalent
of a two-year-old's tantrum and serves only to demonstrate your own ignorance.
Result - two ignorant people instead of one.
Most people wouldn't be so abusive to somebody face to face - even
somebody who asks a silly question - so why here? I'm convinced some do it
because the nature of the medium means they can get away with it.
L
LibraryUser
R. Rajesh Jeba Anbiah said:
Which is even more reason to lurk for a while, so that you have
at least a chance of differentiating the idiots from the
knowledgeable.
S
Slartibartfast
Jirka Klaue said:
But he's not a million miles from the truth.
J
John Bode
Slartibartfast said:
No, it just lets that person think his message didn't propagate
properly and he'll post it *again*.
It lets you *know* you've made a mistake, instead of wondering why
nobody's responding.
[snip]
Look, I've been on the receiving end of abuse here and in other
newsgroups and online forums, and in the grand scheme of things it
doesn't mean dick. People are going to flame. Let 'em flame and move
on. There's no point in getting your feelings hurt in an online
forum. Nor is there any point in being a net nanny.
R
Randy Howard
I won't put words in his mouth, but after looking over the content at the
above link, I find it hard to believe that DMR was actually involved,
except perhaps very peripherally with the text of the "book". Chapter 2
(Birth of C) is about the only portion that seems remotely likely.
It is filled with mistakes, errors, omissions, outright fallacies and
it's too painful to read it all the way through. I'm sorry, because I
like what you are trying to do (help C programmers improve), but the
information in the document is simply going to cause more harm than
good. Out of work developers in western countries should probably
hope that as many Indian C programmers as possible read this document,
but that is faint praise indeed. The book was written between 2000 and
2001 according to the website, yet refers to ANSI C (without specifics)
rather than ISO C, C99, etc. Not that it seems to matter.
Chapter 3: Is there any data to support that Indian Hill is used
by "most of the real programmers"? What happened to K&R, BSD,
GNU, etc.? I don't think Hungarian NOTATION is a coding style
at all per se, but rather a (poor) variable naming convention. The
reference to VB is perhaps true, but by no means relevant. The "WAR"
coding style is, well, best left ignored.
Chapter 4: Seems to assume (including references to hotkeys for
help in the GUI) to Turbo C++ 3.0. The "Myths" section is certainly
aptly named, both in questions and in the responses. It's completely
stunning that you can write any of the content in section 4.1 with
a straight face. The rest of the "chapter" doesn't get much better.
Chapter 5: Despite being only one page in length, it has errors. Hint:
What does the standard say that EXIT_FAILURE is equal to?. There are
technical arguments to be made about 5.2 as well, but....
Chapter 6: Oh boy. Your attempts to define undefined behavior are
pretty scary. A look at the standards documents might also be
terrifying in this regard, but at least you can't claim they aren't
the letter of the law, so to speak. 6.1 What Dennis Ritchie did or
did not say about program fragments is not the method of determining
undefined behavior. Section 6.2 makes no attempt to even explain WHY
any of the examples might or might not invoke undefined behavior, it
simply claims they are "idiotic questions ... often asked in Indian
Programming [sic] world". That's all you have to say on this topic?
I'm not sure how a book consists of multiple one page "chapters",
but ...
Chapter 7: "The Magic XOR". Using XOR for SWAP actually itself
invokes undefined behavior, yet you show call it out as an example of
the "magic" of XOR rather than including it in the above "chapter.
See CLC FAQ 10.3 for more info on why. While I'm thinking about it,
replacing the entire text with a pointer to
http://www.eskimo.com/~scs/C-faq/top.html
would be a huge improvement. 7.3 actually tells the reader that the
use of
ch ^ 'a'
is a valid encryption technique, with one of the added benefits
of "Since such technique does not have any 'key' values, it is
easy to decrypt the file". How joyous. The mind boggles further.
A big flashing "DANGER: THIS IS NOT ENCRYPTION" should be nearby.
Chapter 8: "String Function" [sic]. This is simply another one
page chapter with the author's pet implementations of strlen,
strcpy, strcat and strcmp. Apparently, understanding these will
help improve your programming skills. I suppose that all depends
upon where you fall on the totem pole.
This is getting long, so I'll skip around, section 12.3 provides
a *claimed* cure for memory leaks. It turns out that "The remedy
for memory leak is to declare pointer constant". It has to be read
to be fully appreciated.
Chapter 13 is dedicated to the concept of Code Obfuscation in which
we find out that "Throughout the world most of the C programmers
participate in this contest". The fact that no Indian has yet won
the prize is called out for a reason to explore the topic. *Sigh*
Almost none of chaptes 14-79 have anything to do with modern
programming, or ANSI or ISO C at all, so I won't bother. Most
of it would be far better replaced with an old copy of Ray
Duncan's "Advanced MSDOS Programming" from 18 years ago.
If you really want to help Indian programmers, point them at
some content written about things relevant in this century,
and more importantly written accurately. As previously stated,
the CLC FAQ (FREE in online form, but the book is nice to
have handy as well) and a copy of K&R2 would be orders of
magnitude better than this "book".
G
goose
Slartibartfast said:
I would *definately*(sp?) give someone silly answers to homework
assignments in person. I have done this before. I will do it again.
it also means that students believe that *they* can get away with
it. that sword works both ways ...
goose,
and the answer is ... ... ... 42!!!
(btw, nice job in norway
S
Slartibartfast
John Bode said:
You don't have to set fire to someone's hair to achieve that.
In the grand scheme of things we'll all be dead soon anyway, so nothing means "dick".
So it's OK for me to abuse anybody in any way I like, is it? That's the logical conclusion
of your line of reasoning, and it doesn't work.
Maybe in face to face conversations you *do* advocate a punch in the mouth for anyone
who says anything you don't like or agree with.
S
Slartibartfast
goose said:
There's a world of difference between silly answers and abuse, though.
goose,
and the answer is ... ... ... 42!!!
(btw, nice job in norway
....lovely crinkly edges.
J
Joona I Palaste
They say they thank him for the use of his picture. Perhaps that's his
sole contribution.
My particular favourite was:
Q: I am working in UNIX. Does that mean I am working within ANSI C?
A: Yes.
ROTFLMAO. So things like getpid(), getgid(), open(), close(),
socket(), bind(), accept() etc. are ANSI standard C these days?
(snip further criticism)
This book also claims to be for learners, and to concentrate on ANSI C.
But then, right after Chapter I, it goes *very* deep into MS-DOS land
(the inner workings of MS-DOS, no less, not its C API) and assumes that
the whole world is Turbo C++ 3.0 (which IMO also is obsolete these
days). If (as the authors say) "C programming means ANSI C", why is
over two-thirds of the book MS-DOS-specific?
In closing, this is a book I would not recommend to anyone. You're
better off with K&R2.
--
/-- Joona Palaste ([email protected]) ---------------------------\
| Kingpriest of "The Flying Lemon Tree" G++ FR FW+ M- #108 D+ ADA N+++|
| http://www.helsinki.fi/~palaste W++ B OP+ |
\----------------------------------------- Finland rules! ------------/
"C++. C++ run. Run, ++, run."
- JIPsoft
M
Mark McIntyre
Agreed, Richard is close to the truth.
R
Richard Bos
You know what? You've just decisively lost your argument, as well as
proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that you're a tosser.
Richard
R
R. Rajesh Jeba Anbiah
Jirka Klaue said:
I don't think, only a teacher can judge another teacher; even a
poor student can evaluate a teacher. I hope, I'm stupid enough to
guess at least. Also, I think, my past 3 years of constant touch with
CLC is suffice enough (IMHO).
---
"The world is too dangerous to live in - not because of the people
who do evil, but because of the people who sit and let it happen." --
Albert Einstein
http://guideme.itgo.com/atozofc/ - "A to Z of C" Project
Email: rrjanbiah-at-Y!com
R
R. Rajesh Jeba Anbiah
You're harping on the positive influence of "hurts". Yes, hurts have
yielded Gandhi, and also Hitler & Eminem. I think, it is wrong to
guess you're making Gandhis.
If your children ask fish on fasting day, you won't give snake to
teach about the values of fasting. You can't p*s* off at your
children, but you p*s* off at others only because you don't consider
them as at least a humanbeing.
I know a good expert on comp.os.msdos.programmer, his name is
Alexander Russell. He has changed so many clueless newbies into
thinkers by his unique kind approach.
---
"The world is too dangerous to live in - not because of the people
who do evil, but because of the people who sit and let it happen." --
Albert Einstein
http://guideme.itgo.com/atozofc/ - "A to Z of C" Project
Email: rrjanbiah-at-Y!com
R
R. Rajesh Jeba Anbiah
Randy Howard said:
Thanks a lot for spending more time on mending the material. I
would have been much better if you post such bugs in it's own bug
reporting corner. Anyway, thanks a lot for your great time and
comments.
---
"The world is too dangerous to live in - not because of the people
who do evil, but because of the people who sit and let it happen." --
Albert Einstein
http://guideme.itgo.com/atozofc/ - "A to Z of C" Project
Email: rrjanbiah-at-Y!com
R
R. Rajesh Jeba Anbiah
Joona I Palaste said:
I guess 2 reasons for your jottings: 1. You didn't read the material
fully (It never claims it as ANSI C book), 2. You intentionally
prefered to shame me.
If even K&R and C unleashed can be suffixed with errata, "A to Z of
C" has no exception. I hope, the book will evolve in it's own way, but
the journey is quite long (that I know)
---
"The world is too dangerous to live in - not because of the people
who do evil, but because of the people who sit and let it happen." --
Albert Einstein
http://guideme.itgo.com/atozofc/ - "A to Z of C" Project
Email: rrjanbiah-at-Y!com
R
R. Rajesh Jeba Anbiah
One thing I have to tell you: *certainly* I'm not interested in
any flame war. Please re-read what I said and what you've replied, and
then decide about the tosser.
---
"The world is too dangerous to live in - not because of the people
who do evil, but because of the people who sit and let it happen." --
Albert Einstein
http://guideme.itgo.com/atozofc/ - "A to Z of C" Project
Email: rrjanbiah-at-Y!com
A
auto5339
Come on--your book is worse than rubbish. It wasted my time, is
erroneous in many places, and doesn't provide ANY useful information to
a beginner... encrypting with XOR? give me a break.
R
Richard Heathfield
R. Rajesh Jeba Anbiah said:
Fair enough. What's the URL?
R
R. Rajesh Jeba Anbiah
Richard Heathfield said:
Home: http://guideme.itgo.com/atozofc/
List of Bugs: http://guideme.itgo.com/atozofc/bugs/
Bug reporting page: http://guideme.itgo.com/atozofc/bugs/report.html
Contact page: http://guideme.itgo.com/atozofc/contact/
Hope, this is what you've asked.