Rating: 
Summary: Horrible, a waste of paper.
Review: This book should have been called "Stupid Mistakes You Will Make In C the First Two Months @ Work". There is nothing expert about this book and the author is (...)claiming to be an expert himself. He wrote this book as part of Sun's push to get JAVA more market share. I have been writing C code for 15 years and as my review of Sept 11th, 1998 makes clear, I find this book offensive for its pretention and lack of substance. The correct title of this book would be "Fireplace Starter". If you can find it, try Harbison and Steele's book instead. Study the standard library carefully and emulate it. You will soon find yourself a good C programmer. (hint: if you are returning integers from functions, instead of pointers, you haven't gotten "it" yet. Study the string functions and you'll see what I mean.)
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting for beginners, ok for pros ...
Review: This is an interesting book. It is unlike any other C programming book I have ever read. The book should have been called "A dated cornucopia of tips, tricks, problems, good, bad and ugly things about the C programming Languge."Most of what the author has said is known to most professional programmers. But, it would definitely be an interesting read if you are new to the world of programming. Most of what the author says is still valid on most contemporary systems, especially if you ignore the oft references to DOS. I believe a new C programmer should read this as his/her second/third book, just to feel confident among the pros. But, I wouldn't rate it as a must read. Here are some of the problems with the book: * too much stupid humor. And in more cases than not, the jokes don't even make you laugh! * a hodge-podge of topics * the presentation is not consistent. The author presents problems with pointers, then presents a section on casting, throws around a few programs from the popular IOCCC to impress the kids, then jumps back to pointers, and everything else on Earth. * the author tries to make a case that C's operator precedence is broken! K&R said that ages back! The author wastes a lot of time lambasting the C standardization commitee! The author wastes quite a few paragraphs quoting sections from the ANSI std. * the author does not explain anything clearly! Why is a char** not the same as a const char** is never explained! But, the fact is stated and a bogus explanation with useless stories is given over pages and pages. So, I think this is a decent book, but, if you read K&R thoroughly, and/or implement/maintain enough C software you would know most of these things. I wouldn't rate this book as a must read, but if you are still a student, and have a week to spare, then make it your second/thrid C book.
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