[comp.lang.c] New K&R edition

daveb@laidbak.UUCP (Dave Burton) (03/15/88)

I just received a little blurb from Prentice-Hall Publishers
about K&R, *second* edition. According to P-H, it was published
in Jan. 1988.

Ok, I have the King James version. Is this NASB, NIV, or what?
Who has heard anything about this 2E? Seen it?

What was wrong with the first edition? :-)
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dmr@alice.UUCP (03/19/88)

Someone just got a blurb from Prentice-Hall advertising a second edition
of the White Book.  I guess P-H is doing their job!

Next to me is a warm-off-the-press copy of that very book,
delivered today by our editor.  I'm assured that bulk shipments will
start in a couple of weeks.

	The C Programming Language, second edition
	B. W. Kernighan and D. M. Ritchie
	Prentice-Hall, 1988
	ISBN 0-13-110362-8  (paper)	$28.00   272 pages
	ISBN 0-13-110370-9  (cloth)	$40.00

Overall the structure resembles that of the first edition, but
it has been thoroughly overhauled.  The language it describes is
that of the ANSI X3J11 draft of December*.  It has new examples
(including a simple version of cdecl), more discussion of pointers, 
a list of changes from the original language, discussions of
language changes interleaved into the reference manual, a YACCable
grammar, and a description of the ANSI library routines.

The cover is still white.

The first edition remains in print.
----
* "noalias" is mentioned only in footnotes.


		Dennis Ritchie

gwyn@brl-smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn ) (03/20/88)

In article <1379@laidbak.UUCP> daveb@laidbak.UUCP (Dave Burton) writes:
>I just received a little blurb from Prentice-Hall Publishers
>about K&R, *second* edition. According to P-H, it was published
>in Jan. 1988.

Okay, since the cat is now out of the bag:

Yes, Kernighan & Ritchie revised the C book and sent it off to
Prentice-Hall to be published as the second edition.  I haven't
seen the final publication yet, although it might have been
printed and distributed by now (I don't know what the turnaround
time is), but I did review a draft copy so I pretty much know
what the second edition contains.

Generally:  virtually all the minor annoyances of the first
edition have been cleaned up; more examples have been added;
and the language definition has been changed to be ANSI C
(with possible small deviations due to having to work from drafts
rather than the final standard, which hasn't yet been produced).

I would say this edition is significantly better than the first,
which was of course a classic.

swarbric@tramp.Colorado.EDU (Frank Swarbrick) (03/22/88)

Why didn't you wait until the ANSI draft was absolutly, positivly finished?
(I am assuming you are the Dennis Ritchie who is the co-author.)

Not really a criticism.  I'm just curious.

Frank Swarbrick (and his cat)
swarbric@tramp.UUCP               swarbric@tramp.Colorado.EDU
...!{ncar|nbires}!boulder!tramp!swarbric
"Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends..."

romain@pyrnj.uucp (Romain Kang) (03/22/88)

One of my friends, who happens to be in P-H marketing, has had access
to some of the "historical documents" related to the first edition.
The first advertisement comprised just a few lines buried inside of
a much larger display.  Also, one marketing letter (perhaps from one
of the authors) noted that there were approximately 130 UNIX sites,
and that P-H should expect to sell an average of 9 copies per site!

(At last count, over a million copies of the first edition had been
printed...)

dave@sun.soe.clarkson.edu (Dave Goldblatt) (03/22/88)

From article <4992@sigi.Colorado.EDU>, by swarbric@tramp.Colorado.EDU (Frank Swarbrick):
> Why didn't you wait until the ANSI draft was absolutly, positivly finished?

Because it wouldn't be a draft anymore. :-)

(will it ever be finished?  Tune in tomorrow, for the same bat.news, on
your same batcomputer.. ;-)

-dg-

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