🚀 go-pugleaf

On 20 Aug 2003 10:19:54 -0800, the renowned Floyd Davidson
<floyd@barrow.com> wrote:

>Spehro Pefhany <speff@interlog.com> wrote:
>>On Wed, 20 Aug 2003 14:54:47 GMT, the renowned "CyBorg 0091"
>><non@no.na> wrote:
>>
>>>Not helpfull information.
>>
>>comp.lang.c is just about useless for a beginner unless your sole
>>interest is in rigid conformance to the ISO/ANSI standard. It's not
>
>But of course every beginner *should* be exceedingly interested
>in exactly what "rigid conformance to the ISO/ANSI standard" is,
>and hence comp.lang.c is a wonderful source of extremely good
>information.  Google is a beginner's friend...  (and an old
>timer's best friend).

Yes. 

>>about programming or algorithms or for discussion of compiler quirks
>>*at all*. 
>
>It doesn't teach beginners to use editors, how to sit correctly
>in a chair, or how to build a house to put their computer in
>either.  Is that wrong?

Certainly not, but he asked about C programming, not writing portable
C code or inserting AGP cards into the appropriate orifice. I'm
thinking Knuth or something from O'Reilly rather than ISO/IEC
9899:1999. This may be a matter of which learning method works better
for the person- not everyone learns best starting with BNF notation
descriptions of the grammar. I like to see lots of examples as well. 

>>If you're really interested in the language as defined in the
>>standard, you can get the same information, minus the attitude (which
>>can be devastating for newcomers who have yet to grow a skin) by
>>picking up a copy (PDF if you like) of the ISO/IEC 9899:1999 standard.
>>It's not very expensive. 
>
>It's $18, last I knew.  But the understanding that Chris Torek
>or Larry Kirby are willing to provide for free, is priceless.

I agree. IIRC, Richard Heathfield has been quite helpful to me on a
couple of occasions. It's the inquiries that start "how do I print" or
"how do I use the timer" and stuff like that that really are
inappropriate for that ng. Unfortunately, I/O seems to be where
beginners tend to have their first serious questions.

>>Also look for lists devoted to the compiler(s) you are interested in. 
>
>Next to c.l.c, the next most useful newsgroup would be one devoted
>to the particular platform (that is, a C implementation on a given
>computer), though in some cases just a programming group for the
>OS will do.  Examples are, for Linux, the various comp.os.linux.*
>groups, and more generally for a unix OSs, comp.unix.programmer.
>There are similar groups for Mac's, Windows, etc.

For a lot of embedded compilers, there don't seem to be many
newsgroups, other than comp.arch.embedded, but there are many active
mailing lists. 

Best regards, 
Spehro Pefhany
-- 
"it's the network..."                          "The Journey is the reward"
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