My last post was all about what has changed in the world of databases since I graduated. This post is all about what hasn’t.
I graduated with a degree in Computer Science in 1988 and during my course we learn’t a number of programming languages including C. Then THE bible on the subject was by Kernighan & Ritche.
My younger son has just started his second year Computer Science degree and this year they too are learning C. When he told me this I mentioned the book and wondered if they would still use it. Yesterday was his first lecture and I get a text which said:
“Kernighan & Ritche. Mentioned 3 mins into lecture”.
However, it would seem that things have moved on a bit as the following texts said:
“He (the lecturer) says it’s a bit dated and you might get buffer overflow vulnerabilities and stuff”
I suspect that the lecturer might have been slightly more specific and the “and stuff” was either because it wasn’t felt necessary to elaborate further on a text or that my son felt that he should be concentrate on the lecture rather than texting me! Either way this was followed by:
“He recommends Bjarne Stroustrup for up to date, whereas K+R is a ‘classic'”
It’s great that something that was so much a part of my degree some 15 years later can still be seen in such a positive light that it still gets referenced today.