Top all-time · #4938
Tim Hentenaar
Personal blog · hentenaar.comprogramminggames
Tim Hentenaar's personal blog at hentenaar.com covers programming and games. Since 2015, 16 different Hacker News readers have linked it 17 times, most often “Don't Learn C the Wrong Way”. No feed was found, so read it on the site itself.
Too few sampled comments (13) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN commenters link Tim Hentenaar's post "Don't learn C the wrong way", a critique of Zed Shaw's Learn C the Hard Way. It is cited whenever that book comes up in C discussions.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 13 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- Don't Learn C the Wrong Way15 people · 16 mentions · first linked 2015-01-29
What Hacker News says?
Here's an old critique, but based on everything I've ever read from or about Zed Shaw, I trust that it's still valid: http://hentenaar.com/dont-learn-c-the-wrong-way
Comment linking /dont-learn-c-the-wrong-way
on “Modern C, Second Edition”Submitted Inside an Official GameBoy Dev Cartridge as a story · 76 points
HN discussionhttp://hentenaar.com/dont-learn-c-the-wrong-way
Comment linking /dont-learn-c-the-wrong-way
on “Ask HN: What should a systems/low-level software engineer know?”Submitted Don't Learn C the Wrong Way as a story · 71 points
HN discussionLearn C the Hard Way was Zed Shaw's aspiration of a K&R Replacement[1]. If you like it, great, if you don't, you have company[2] [0] https://learncodethehardway.org/c/ [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20141205223016/http://c.learncod... [2] http://hentenaar.com/dont-learn-c-the-wrong-way
Comment linking /dont-learn-c-the-wrong-way
on “Modern C [pdf]”Submitted Don't Learn C the Wrong Way as a story · 5 points
HN discussionI enjoyed "Learn C the hard way" by Zed Shaw, but http://hentenaar.com/dont-learn-c-the-wrong-way kinda opened my eyes for some issues, and Zed seems to aggree ( https://twitter.com/zedshaw/status/562535244713058304 ) that the material needs a rewrite.
Comment linking /dont-learn-c-the-wrong-way
on “Modern C [pdf]”Submitted Don't Learn C the Wrong Way as a story · 1 points
HN discussionUnfortunately, there are not a single but a multitude of cultures within the C programming community that compete with others, most of them claiming they are safer than others. The aforementioned list for example has Jed Shaw's Learn C The Hard Way as having "[t]oo many factual problems and a presentation that gets you to do things wrongly before being shown how to do it correctly, and not even always then". This is…
Comment linking /dont-learn-c-the-wrong-way
on “Learn C and build your own Lisp (2014)”I think it might not cover them, going by this: http://hentenaar.com/dont-learn-c-the-wrong-way
Comment linking /dont-learn-c-the-wrong-way
on “C for high level programmers (slides)”I'm not sure how much someone who wasn't already familiar with vectors could get out of this. This seems to be a common issue with informal lessons like this[1]. The article starts seemingly assuming you have no idea what a vector is, but after showing a few graphs opines "As you can see, a vector by itself is just a set of numbers". I don't think someone who didn't already know what a vector was and how to recogniz…
Comment linking /dont-learn-c-the-wrong-way
on “Linear algebra for game developers – Part 1 (2009)”I'm the author of The Silver Searcher (aka ag)[1]. I wrote my first C program almost 20 years ago, and I have some not-very-nice things to say about this guide. I hope the author won't take it personally. First, Zed Shaw's Learn C the Hard Way is not worth reading. I agree with most of Tim Hentenaar's criticisms.[2] It's confusing, incomplete, and overly opinionated. If you want to get started with C, read the K&R b…
Comment linking /dont-learn-c-the-wrong-way
on “C Programming Guidelines”Low level languages are tough. Gaining a mastery of C does require knowing quite a few strange rules and quirks and it's certainly a bit harder than learning Python. The C FAQ does a good job of illustrating some of the more confusing parts. Sure, I wish I could write Go instead, but that isn't going to happen on the many embedded systems I work on. This is a rather strange and insulting article. I'm not sure why Ze…
Comment linking /dont-learn-c-the-wrong-way
on “Deconstructing K&R C Is Dead (2015)”There was a very good critique of "earn C the Hard Way": http://hentenaar.com/dont-learn-c-the-wrong-way
Comment linking /dont-learn-c-the-wrong-way
on “Ask HN: Should I use K&R to learn C?”They are quoting from http://hentenaar.com/dont-learn-c-the-wrong-way
Comment linking /dont-learn-c-the-wrong-way
on “Learn C the Hard Way: A Clear and Direct Introduction to Modern C Programming”http://hentenaar.com/dont-learn-c-the-wrong-way
Comment linking /dont-learn-c-the-wrong-way
on “Learn C the Hard Way: A Clear and Direct Introduction to Modern C Programming”http://hentenaar.com/dont-learn-c-the-wrong-way
Comment linking /dont-learn-c-the-wrong-way
on “Ask HN: Resources on secure coding in C?”
