When comparing The C Programming Language (AKA: K&R) vs Learn C The Hard Way, the Slant community recommends Learn C The Hard Way for most people. In the question“What are the best resources for a beginner to learn C?” Learn C The Hard Way is ranked 1st while The C Programming Language (AKA: K&R) is ranked 2nd. The most important reason people chose Learn C The Hard Way is:
The book covers very basics such as C syntax, idioms, compilations, make files, linkers and how to find and prevent bugs.
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Pros
Pro Well known classic
This book is so well known that it's affectionately called "K & R", after the authors.
It's been cited in many other books and is familiar to most, if not all, CS students.
Pro It's excerpted from the idea of its creators
This book is written by Dennis Ritchie, who was one of the main people behind the development and design of C and UNIX.
Pro Creative, challenging exercises
The challenges at the end of each chapter do a great job of requiring many of the skills learned up to that point. Completing the challenges is a great way of insuring you understand the material.
Pro This book set the template for programming language books
Pro Designed for people new to C
The book covers very basics such as C syntax, idioms, compilations, make files, linkers and how to find and prevent bugs.
Pro Very practical and hands on
Contains many exercises that will require getting hands dirty very early on.
Pro Can be combined with a video course
A complimentary course is available on Udemy. The course costs $29.
Pro Free
The book is available online for free.
Cons
Con Out of Date
Some commands and practices are out of date, so errata and googling is needed while going through the book.
Con Teaches bad style
The K&R style works for old Unix mainframe command-line programs that exit after a simple task and leave the cleanup to the OS; where input is only from trusted experts; and most functions are only called internally to the program. The environment is very different today. This style will get your server owned by hackers, or crash it due to a memory leak, etc. You will have to unlearn what you've learned from this book to use C correctly in the real world today.
Con Not for beginners
Assumes familiarity not only with programming concepts but some C language specifics.
Con Has errors
Includes technical errors throughout the book.