I saw a sale from O'Reilly Publishing tonight on an new ebook for 21st Century C. I have a good history with O'Reilly and C programming, so it caught my attention.

When I was in University, Practical C Programming taught me much more than any of my professors, and Unix System Programming for System VR4 taught me a great deal more about programming C on Unix/Linux. After reading those books, I became actually comfortable in working in C for all of my assignments, and other students kept coming to me for help until I had somehow become a local C expert. Amazing what a good investment in reading material will do, not to mention actually reading said material. Another friend in University taught me that. He told me not to ever begrudge the cost of a book that helps you get better at what you do. I've applied that lesson ever since.

I relied on O'Reilly for my first introduction to C++, with C++, the Core Language, which finally explained to me where some of my memory leaks were coming from, by explaining copy constructors and assignment operators. I turned to another book to finish most of my C++ education, but O'Reilly got me started.

Since University, with the wealth of information on the Internet, I haven't bought many C books, but I did pick up Advanced Unix Programming, second edition, on the recommendation of a coworker, and he did not lead me astray, the book is excellent. Mind you, I still haven't finished reading it. I seem to buy books faster than I read them these days.

Maybe one day I'll take a little vacation just to read. Anyway...

Looking at the new O'Reilly book, it looks like it has many practical ideas for someone living with C from day to day, and should also provide a nice introduction to the new C11 standard, just released in December of last year. Hopefully it'll sharpen my skills like previous O'Reilly books have. I'll try to post a full review once I've finished it...err...if I finish it.

I will stop buying faster than I can read. I will stop buying faster than I can read. Maybe if I keep repeating that, it'll sink in.