Need to learn C, best books?

Nigel Rantor wiggly at wiggly.org
Fri Oct 26 14:28:44 BST 2007


Aaron Crane wrote:
> Nic Gibson writes:
>> On 10/26/07, Dirk Koopman <djk at tobit.co.uk> wrote:
>>> K&R formatting good, anything else bad (and literally a waste of
>>> space).
>> But then I waste space because space is cheap.
> 
> I'm not so sure it is, in this context.  It seems pretty clear to me
> that the more code you can see on screen at once, the easier it is to
> understand.  With that in mind, note that (unlike, say, CPU transistor
> counts) screen lines are a non-renewable resource.
> 
> The limiting factor in how many lines can be displayed simultaneously
> is actually the way human vision works.  Increasing pixel counts
> doesn't help beyond a certain point: if the screen gets bigger, you
> have to put it further away to ensure you can see all of it, and if
> the pixels get smaller, you have to use more of them for each line of
> text you want to be legible.  (Subpixel text decimation counts as a
> cunning variant of "smaller pixels" for these purposes.)
> 
> K&R differs from other brace styles in not spending precious screen
> lines on opening curlies whose presence a human can infer from the
> shape of the code.  That's a strong argument to make when choosing an
> indentation style for a fresh project.

[INSERT ENTIRELEY PREDICTABLE AND POINTLESS REBUTTAL OF ABOVE RELIGIOUS 
POINT HERE]

HTH HAND KTHNXBYE


More information about the london.pm mailing list