Is it suitable for a complete programming beginner?
Not really, it assumes familiarity with variables, loops, and other basic programming concepts. It begins with a program that prints a greeting, but offers little repetition or hand-holding.
Nonfiction · Reference · Technology
The C Programming Language
Reading facts
✓ Checked- Reading effort
- 53 / 100Moderate
- Length
- 288 pagesPrentice Hall · 1988
- Reading time
- 5 h 45 minat 50 pages an hour ·
- Pace
- Measured
- Emotional intensity
- 1 / 5
About 5 h 45 min · at 30 minutes a day, about 12 days
Estimated from the page count of this edition. Dense books can take longer than the estimate.
About the book
Brian W. Kernighan and Dennis M. Ritchie teach C through working programs, connecting the language’s rules to practical problems in handling text, organizing data, and managing memory. Beginning with a program that prints a greeting, they cover functions, pointers, arrays, and structures before exploring file input and output and the Unix system interface. Exercises ask the reader to extend and revise the examples, while a reference manual collects the language’s technical details.
Reader notes
Concise explanations make this programming textbook compact but demanding: it assumes familiarity with variables, loops, and other basic concepts. Reading it involves working through code, with little repetition or hand-holding.
How it reads
- Writing style
- Direct · Spare · Technical
- Tone
- Cerebral · Earnest
- Structure
- Reference
- Driven by
- Information
- Evidence style
- Practical exercises
- Practical orientation
- Actionable
- Nonfiction form
- Explanation synthesis · Prescriptive how to · Reference
Reading complexity
- Writing
- 3 / 5
- Ideas
- 4 / 5
- Structure
- 2 / 5
- Background knowledge
- 3 / 5
About this profile
Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).
- Writing
- How much attention the sentences and language require.
- Ideas
- How much interpretation or abstract reasoning the book asks of you.
- Structure
- How much you need to keep track of speakers, timelines and connections.
- Background knowledge
- Prior knowledge needed to follow the book, beyond what it explains.
- Emotional intensity
- Emotional pressure, from gentle (1) to intense (5). Separate from difficulty.
Content notes
- Violence
- None
- Sexual content
- None
- Swearing
- None
- Substance use
- None
- Abuse
- None
- Self-harm or suicide
- None
Questions readers ask
Is it hard to read?
Yes, the concise explanations are compact but demanding, and reading involves working through code. The prose is direct and spare, with technical material covering pointers, arrays, structures, and memory management.
How should I work through it?
Work through the example programs and use the exercises to extend and revise them. The teaching connects C’s rules to practical problems such as handling text, organizing data, and managing memory.
Is it useful as a reference as well as a textbook?
Yes, a reference manual collects the language’s technical details alongside the teaching through working programs. Coverage includes functions, pointers, arrays, structures, file input and output, and the Unix system interface.
How long is it?
288 pages in the Prentice Hall 1988 paperback edition.
How long does it take to read The C Programming Language?
About 5 hours 45 minutes at 50 pages an hour, based on the 288-page Prentice Hall edition. Dense books can take longer.
About the authors
Brian W. Kernighan
Brian W. Kernighan is a computer scientist, programmer, teacher, and technical writer whose career spans Unix, programming-language design, optimization research, and computer science education. He wrote Unix programs, helped create AWK and AMPL, devised influential optimization heuristics with Shen Lin, and later taught at Princeton. His books turn that practical experience into instruction built from concise explanations, concrete examples, and exercises. The C Programming Language, written with Dennis Ritchie, established this method early: readers learn the language by reading and writing small, purposeful programs. In The Practice of Programming, coauthored with Rob Pike, Kernighan treats software development as a craft governed by clarity, simplicity, testing, portability, and the intelligent use of tools. His account of Unix adds historical and personal perspective, connecting technical choices to the people and working culture at Bell Labs. Across this collaborative body of work, Kernighan’s characteristic concern is not only how systems and languages operate, but how programmers can understand, explain, and use them well.
Dennis M. Ritchie
Dennis MacAlistair Ritchie was an American computer scientist whose work at Bell Labs linked operating-system development with programming-language design. Working with longtime colleague Ken Thompson, he helped create Unix and the C and B programming languages. C was not tied to any particular hardware, yet its constructs mapped to data structures used in application software. Ritchie also co-wrote The C Programming Language with Brian W. Kernighan, presenting the language through concise explanations, worked programs, and exercises that taught readers by having them write code. He later regarded BSD and Linux as continuations of ideas developed through Unix.
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Edition and details
- Publisher
- Prentice Hall
- Publication year
- 1988
- Format
- Paperback
- Pages
- 288
- ISBN
- 9780131103627
- Edition language
- English
- Original language
- English
- First published
- 1978
- Genres and form
- Nonfiction · Reference · Technology
- Editions
- 48
- Languages
- 12 (Danish, German, English, Spanish, French, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Swedish, Unspecified, Chinese)