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Comment by Svip | Hacker News Reader

I want to be a C programmer now! (I am actually serious, this article has inspired me to try some more C; which I have been seriously neglecting.)

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Do it; you will never regret it.

I primarily write C# (for cash reasons) but my heart will always be with C.

> Do it; you will never regret it.

Citation needed. I hate hate hated C and am very glad to have seen the back of it.

I too hated C once to the point I actually kicked a PC over on its side out of anger. I never understood pointers, structures and string manipulation. I genuinely hated it and wanted it to go away. I deleted all the code I'd written then went for a walk.

Then suddenly... click.

Suddenly, in my mind appeared an abstract model for it. It was complete and possible for one person to understand.

Since then I understand what I'm doing rather than know how to drive the compiler.

That has never happened for any other language I've written and that includes Z80+6502+X86 ASM, C++, C#, VB3-6, PDS7, ksh, Python, Perl and PHP to name a few. Assembly is close but not abstract enough.

Enlightenment is probably the best word to describe it.

I never had the click about pointers, I guess the way they were introduced to me just made them feel intuitive.

I'll never forget the time when programming changed from mechanically entering statements, to controlling the flow of data through a program though (also in C). Definitely a brain-expanding experience :)

Read this book then. It's the best book about any programming language that I have read.

http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/cbook/

The following is a link to some university course page that has the book as pdf

http://www.cs.ucsb.edu/~buoni/cs16/The_C_Programming_Languag...

> I want to be a C programmer now!

Don't hold your breath.

I've been enjoying Zed Shaw's Learn C the Hard Way http://c.learncodethehardway.org/book/

Ha. Me too. I always felt a little intimidated by it, but I can't pass the chance to actually make my own structures.

Do it. With modern C and a huge number of libraries you can be as productive as in any other language.

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