Mail Archives: djgpp/2000/10/16/17:15:15
<much snippage, throughout>
ChuckEasttom wrote:
>
> In article <39EB4271 DOT 85CE6874 AT antlimited DOT com>,
> Richard Heathfield <richard AT antlimited DOT com> wrote:
> > [Hey, Chuck, do you think we should start selling tickets? :-) ]
> >
>
> Absolutely!:)
You print and distribute them, and I'll collect the money. ;-)
> > [Herbert Schildt] is a persuasive author; this should be a good thing but,
> > unfortunately, in his case it is not. He covers difficult topics with
> > aplomb - perhaps this is a consequence of his Masters degree. What a
> > pity, then, that I cannot trust his code.
> >
> I am not saying his code or his books are perfect. I am saying,
> however, that your statement "I cannot trust his code" is simply too
> strong.
I don't think so. Now, I am quite sure that an experienced C programmer
could take the ideas Schildt presents, and make workable, or even
excellent, programs out of them. What is at issue here is that the
flawed techniques Schildt demonstrates are aimed at /newcomers/ to C,
who are unable to distinguish between what is correct and what is not.
All too often, they happen to be using the very platform he assumes they
are using, with the result that the code often appears to "work", even
though it's flawed. Not all environments are as forgiving as Wintel, so
newcomers to C learn techniques which suddenly stop working when they
switch platforms, and they don't understand why.
>
> >
> > > 3. And president of a consulting firm.
> >
> > Yes, a lot of us are in that position.
>
> Congratulations.
Not really - I am the only consultant in the firm! Now, Schildt may be
the president of a firm employing 200 people. Or he might be a one-man
band, like me. I suspect the latter, but have no particular evidence for
that suspicion.
> Oh I will undoubtably be scouring your book for errors:)
Good. That's what peer review is /for/.
>
> But my point is this: Your book has some errors, Schildts book has some
> errors... I have a little epublished VB book that I am currently
> revising because of...yep errors. But your statements seem to indicate
> that if his books have any errors, then they cannot be trusted.
No, I've already pointed out in this thread that errors are inevitable.
What marks Schildt out as special is:
1) Simplicity. Many of his mistakes are howlers that one would expect
from a newbie, but not from a best-selling author.
2) Platform-dependence. Many of his mistakes happen to work on the
platform he uses, and assumes his readers use - his attitude seems to be
"if it works on my compiler, it must be right". In a book on Windows
programming, this might be acceptable. In a book on ANSI C programming,
it is not.
3) Intransigence. When people have, in the past, pointed out his
mistakes, he has denied that they are mistakes at all, despite firm
proof. (I'm thinking particularly of when the ANSI committee tried to
point out to Mr Schildt that main returns int. It has taken him many
years to come round to the idea, and I suspect he isn't totally
convinced even to this day.)
4) Abdication of responsibility. If Mr Schildt publishes an errata list,
I certainly haven't found it. If I'm wrong about that, I hope someone
will point out the fact, for I'd be glad to be proved wrong on this
count.
Everyone makes mistakes. But we expect that authors will make advanced
mistakes, not simple mistakes. We expect that authors of books on ANSI C
will take care to ensure that their programs work on, at the very least,
two reasonably different platforms. We expect authors to be big enough
to accept when they're wrong. And we expect authors to provide their
readership with a list of errata in published works.
At least, those are my expectations. Perhaps I'm just weird.
> I guess that is my real compaint. I would think that professional
> people, most of whom have a formal education, could express their
> criticisms in a very civillized manner.
Yes, you'd think so, wouldn't you? And, do you know what? To a large
extent, this *is* in fact the case. People are considerably more polite
on Usenet than I actually expected would be the case. There is still
rudeness, of course, and I'm quite sure I'm guilty of it myself. But
it's naive to expect people who answer questions regularly to be
unfailingly charming and polite to those who don't bother to follow the
normal conventions of Usenet in general and, more particularly, the
customs and norms of the newsgroups to which they post.
> Well perhaps that is my problem..I just don't have the stomach for
> usenet.
I hope that this very thread has shown that it is possible for people to
conduct a civilised discussion on Usenet, even when they are, to some
extent at least, in confrontation with each other.
--
Richard Heathfield
"Usenet is a strange place." - Dennis M Ritchie, 29 July 1999.
C FAQ: http://www.eskimo.com/~scs/C-faq/top.html
66 K&R Answers: http://users.powernet.co.uk/eton/kandr2/index.html (31
to go)
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