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This book review is about: The C programming Language
By Brian W. Kernighan and Dennis M. Ritchie.

Published by Prentice-Hall (March 22, 1988)

ISBN 0-13-110362-8 (paperback)
ISBN 0-13-110370-9

This book (widely known as K&R, for Kernighan and Ritchie) has an excellent presentation. The book is not an introduction to programming, but is about the C programming language. If you are already relatively familiar with the concepts of programming, then you will be able to learn C quickly.

It is rather Unix focused, with a whole chapter devoted to it, "The UNIX System Interface"; the reason of course being that Dennis Ritchie (at AT&T Bell Labs) developed the programming language for use on the UNIX operating system on a PDP-11. The initial development of C occurred between 1969 and 1973. By 1973, the C language had become powerful enough that most of the UNIX kernel, originally written in PDP-11/20 assembly language, was rewritten in C.

I have not only learned the C language by reading this book, I have also learned some good programming style, and learned more on how computers work. The book is a small one with its 274 pages. On the back of the book the authors say: Which is part of the reason I liked it so much. All in all, a very concise and informative book.

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"Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writings, so that you shall gain easily what others have labored hard for."
-- Socrates