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C for Corporate Programmers
Jim Inglis
Wiley, 1994, 271pp, softbound, £22.50
ISBN 0 471 93965 X
A Review by Adrian Larner for the Computer Journal
C is a programming language so low-level that its identifiers designate storage, which is (they tell us) the hardware component used to implement programming variables. There is nothing wrong with low-level languages (especially portable ones), in their place; but C is also a language so execrable that any adequate specification of it is quite sufficient to condemn it, for those that have ears to hear. Can there be any argument for a professional corporate programmer (a commercial, and probably COBOL, programmer) learning or using it? Yes; and for what it is worth, here it is.
Professional programmers are not “professionals”; they are, and ought to be, like professional carpenters, artisans that exercise their skills for money. A carpenter might properly convert from plywood work to chipboard work: you want tacky? you want to pay for tacky? OK, mate, it’s no skin off my nose. Is there money to be made, or a job to be kept, by writing C instead of, or as well as, our current languages? Fine, let's learn C.
Short and sweet, hey?
If you swallow that, and if you want to convert to C from COBOL (or a similar language), you could buy a copy of this book.
But if you love plain English, well written; or elegantly used typography; or limpid, systematic exposition; or shrewd and balanced judgment: you should buy two copies, and give one to a like-minded friend.
Copyright © 1995, 2001 Adrian Larner. The author asserts all moral rights.
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