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Mike Wahler
Guest
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 Posted: Thu Jan 20, 2005 8:02 pm Post subject: Re: How do the experts here quickly come up with references |
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"Kobu" <kobu.selva (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote
| Quote: | Hello,
I really admire how the experts that roam clc quickly come up with
specific references to parts of C standard documentation. It beats
textbooks anyday because it leaves everyone with less doubt.
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Yes. Many textbooks have errors (but many also have
companion 'errata' sites on the web). And then there's
Herb. :-)
| Quote: | My question is, how do you people do it? Do most of you have hardcopy
versions of the standards or browse online versions?
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The C standard is not (legally) publicly available for free,
it must be purchased. It's available as hard copy or
as a .PDF file (the latter is much less expensive).
I find things by using the Adobe Acrobat search feature,
giving it selected keywords (but this does take practice,
and gets easier once one becomes familiar with its
organization, writing 'style' and terminology used).
| Quote: | Are most of you
already familiar with the language standards enough to quickly find
what's needed (much like an experienced CPA/CA looking at Accounting
Standards).
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When I first got my copy of the standard I was not familiar with
it at all. But experience with it makes using it easier with each
use (just as with your CPA analogy). And of course, as with anything,
those issues most commonly dealt with get added to the category of
'memorized'.
| Quote: | Would you recommend that an intermediate level C programmer
read these standards straight through?
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I would not recommend anyone with any level of expertise read
it 'front to back' like a book. It's intended as a reference,
as it's not organized as a textbook would be (i.e. information
in a particular portion isn't necessarily built upon that
of previous sections -- it does use 'forward references' as
an aid to the reader, however).
I would recommend that an intermediate level (or any professional)
C coder does own a copy of the standard. It's only about 20USD for
a .PDF copy available from www.webstore.ansi.org. Search for
"9899:1999".
Finally, an organization employing several coders might provide
a copy of the standard for them to share. Even if this were
the case for me, I prefer to have my own personal copy.
HTH,
-Mike
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Mike Wahler
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Jan 20, 2005 8:04 pm Post subject: Re: How do the experts here quickly come up with references |
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"Ben Pfaff" <blp (AT) cs (DOT) stanford.edu> wrote
| Quote: | "Kobu" <kobu.selva (AT) gmail (DOT) com> writes:
I really admire how the experts that roam clc quickly come up with
specific references to parts of C standard documentation. It beats
textbooks anyday because it leaves everyone with less doubt.
My question is, how do you people do it?
I converted my PDF copies of the standards into text files.
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Curious: What tool did you use for that?
-Mike
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Ben Pfaff
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Jan 20, 2005 8:57 pm Post subject: Re: How do the experts here quickly come up with references |
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"Mike Wahler" <mkwahler (AT) mkwahler (DOT) net> writes:
| Quote: | "Ben Pfaff" <blp (AT) cs (DOT) stanford.edu> wrote in message
news:87pt00u23w.fsf (AT) benpfaff (DOT) org...
I converted my PDF copies of the standards into text files.
Curious: What tool did you use for that?
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pdftotext from xpdf, plus a little search-and-replace
postprocessing to fix a few things.
--
int main(void){char p[]="ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz.
n",*q="kl BIcNBFr.NKEzjwCIxNJC";int i=sizeof p/2;char *strchr();int putchar(
);while(*q){i+=strchr(p,*q++)-p;if(i>=(int)sizeof p)i-=sizeof p-1;putchar(p[i]
);}return 0;}
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Default User
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Jan 20, 2005 9:29 pm Post subject: Re: How do the experts here quickly come up with references |
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Mike Wahler wrote:
| Quote: | "Kobu" <kobu.selva (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote in message
My question is, how do you people do it? Do most of you have
hardcopy
versions of the standards or browse online versions?
The C standard is not (legally) publicly available for free,
it must be purchased. It's available as hard copy or
as a .PDF file (the latter is much less expensive).
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While it doesn't help me for C, my company recently purchased some sort
of site license for the C++ standard, so they can have the PDF of the
2003 update to that on an internal tools web site. Very handy.
I'm a member of the user group that works with the tools people, I'll
have to ask how much that license cost. More than $18 I'll bet.
Brian
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Chris Croughton
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Jan 20, 2005 9:31 pm Post subject: Re: How do the experts here quickly come up with references |
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On Thu, 20 Jan 2005 20:04:35 GMT, Mike Wahler
<mkwahler (AT) mkwahler (DOT) net> wrote:
| Quote: |
"Ben Pfaff" <blp (AT) cs (DOT) stanford.edu> wrote in message
news:87pt00u23w.fsf (AT) benpfaff (DOT) org...
"Kobu" <kobu.selva (AT) gmail (DOT) com> writes:
I really admire how the experts that roam clc quickly come up with
specific references to parts of C standard documentation. It beats
textbooks anyday because it leaves everyone with less doubt.
My question is, how do you people do it?
I converted my PDF copies of the standards into text files.
Curious: What tool did you use for that?
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Acrobat, tell it to save as a text file!
There is a GNU too pdftotext as well, but I've found that it fails on a
number of PDF files (I believe it uses ghostscript).
Chris C
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Mike Wahler
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Jan 20, 2005 10:24 pm Post subject: Re: How do the experts here quickly come up with references |
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"Chris Croughton" <chris (AT) keristor (DOT) net> wrote
| Quote: |
I converted my PDF copies of the standards into text files.
Curious: What tool did you use for that?
Acrobat, tell it to save as a text file!
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That was my first instinct, but alas, by copy does not
allow doing so.
| Quote: |
There is a GNU too pdftotext as well, but I've found that it fails on a
number of PDF files (I believe it uses ghostscript).
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Thanks for your suggestions.
-Mike
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lawrence.jones@ugs.com
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Jan 20, 2005 11:09 pm Post subject: Re: How do the experts here quickly come up with references |
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Chris Croughton <chris (AT) keristor (DOT) net> wrote:
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INCITS is what used to be ANSI, I gather (I lose track of these acronym
changes)...
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Actually, INCITS is what was briefly known as NCITS and before that was
Accredited Standards Committee X3, Information Technology. ANSI is who
accredited it, and who delegates responsibility for IT standards to it.
-Larry Jones
Girls are like slugs -- they probably serve some purpose, but
it's hard to imagine what. -- Calvin
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Chris Croughton
Guest
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| Posted: Fri Jan 21, 2005 9:04 am Post subject: Re: How do the experts here quickly come up with references |
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On Thu, 20 Jan 2005 22:24:43 GMT, Mike Wahler
<mkwahler (AT) mkwahler (DOT) net> wrote:
| Quote: | "Chris Croughton" <chris (AT) keristor (DOT) net> wrote in message
news:slrncv08q3.23a.chris (AT) ccserver (DOT) keris.net...
I converted my PDF copies of the standards into text files.
Curious: What tool did you use for that?
Acrobat, tell it to save as a text file!
That was my first instinct, but alas, by copy does not
allow doing so.
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Ah, version 6 on Windows (at least) does allow that (with the C spec.
anyway, there are other PDF files with embedded graphics which it can't
save as text).
| Quote: | There is a GNU too pdftotext as well, but I've found that it fails on
a number of PDF files (I believe it uses ghostscript).
Thanks for your suggestions.
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You can also try pdf2ps and ps2ascii, that sometimes works better (or
worse) than pdftotext. Somewhere I've seen a pdf to HTLM converter but
it doesn't seem to be on my system...
Chris C
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Chris Croughton
Guest
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| Posted: Fri Jan 21, 2005 3:13 pm Post subject: Re: How do the experts here quickly come up with references |
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On Thu, 20 Jan 2005 23:09:13 GMT, [email]lawrence.jones (AT) ugs (DOT) com[/email]
<lawrence.jones (AT) ugs (DOT) com> wrote:
| Quote: | Chris Croughton <chris (AT) keristor (DOT) net> wrote:
INCITS is what used to be ANSI, I gather (I lose track of these acronym
changes)...
Actually, INCITS is what was briefly known as NCITS and before that was
Accredited Standards Committee X3, Information Technology. ANSI is who
accredited it, and who delegates responsibility for IT standards to it.
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Thanks for the details, as I said I can never remember who is called
what ("The committee formerly known as X3"). Countries are even
worse...
| Quote: | Girls are like slugs -- they probably serve some purpose, but
it's hard to imagine what. -- Calvin
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I'll remember that quote <g>...
Chris C
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CBFalconer
Guest
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| Posted: Fri Jan 21, 2005 5:17 pm Post subject: Re: How do the experts here quickly come up with references |
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Chris Croughton wrote:
| Quote: |
.... snip ...
Thanks for the details, as I said I can never remember who is
called what ("The committee formerly known as X3"). Countries
are even worse...
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Hah. I have no problem with Persia, Ceylon, Burma, Siam, Rhodesia,
Czechoslovakia. I can even point to them on a map.
--
"If you want to post a followup via groups.google.com, don't use
the broken "Reply" link at the bottom of the article. Click on
"show options" at the top of the article, then click on the
"Reply" at the bottom of the article headers." - Keith Thompson
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Joe Wright
Guest
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| Posted: Sat Jan 22, 2005 1:47 am Post subject: Re: How do the experts here quickly come up with references |
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CBFalconer wrote:
| Quote: | Chris Croughton wrote:
... snip ...
Thanks for the details, as I said I can never remember who is
called what ("The committee formerly known as X3"). Countries
are even worse...
Hah. I have no problem with Persia, Ceylon, Burma, Siam, Rhodesia,
Czechoslovakia. I can even point to them on a map.
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But an old map. Now it's Iran, Sri Lanka, etc. Where would you look
on your map for San Marino or Andorra? Now don't search for them or
look them up. That's cheating. Just point to them.
--
Joe Wright mailto:joewwright (AT) comcast (DOT) net
"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."
--- Albert Einstein ---
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CBFalconer
Guest
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| Posted: Sat Jan 22, 2005 5:16 am Post subject: Re: How do the experts here quickly come up with references |
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Joe Wright wrote:
| Quote: | CBFalconer wrote:
Chris Croughton wrote:
... snip ...
Thanks for the details, as I said I can never remember who is
called what ("The committee formerly known as X3"). Countries
are even worse...
Hah. I have no problem with Persia, Ceylon, Burma, Siam, Rhodesia,
Czechoslovakia. I can even point to them on a map.
But an old map. Now it's Iran, Sri Lanka, etc. Where would you look
on your map for San Marino or Andorra? Now don't search for them or
look them up. That's cheating. Just point to them.
|
I think in Italy and Spain, but I may be way off on those. However
this is drifting too far OT - THE END.
--
"If you want to post a followup via groups.google.com, don't use
the broken "Reply" link at the bottom of the article. Click on
"show options" at the top of the article, then click on the
"Reply" at the bottom of the article headers." - Keith Thompson
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lawrence.jones@ugs.com
Guest
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| Posted: Sat Jan 22, 2005 11:09 pm Post subject: Re: How do the experts here quickly come up with references |
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Mike Wahler <mkwahler (AT) mkwahler (DOT) net> wrote:
| Quote: |
I would not recommend anyone with any level of expertise read
it 'front to back' like a book.
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Yes, both the plot and the character development leave something to be
desired. :-)
-Larry Jones
See if we can sell Mom and Dad into slavery for a star cruiser. -- Calvin
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Mike Wahler
Guest
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| Posted: Sun Jan 23, 2005 8:10 am Post subject: Re: How do the experts here quickly come up with references |
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<lawrence.jones (AT) ugs (DOT) com> wrote
| Quote: | Mike Wahler <mkwahler (AT) mkwahler (DOT) net> wrote:
I would not recommend anyone with any level of expertise read
it 'front to back' like a book.
Yes, both the plot and the
character development leave something to be
desired. 
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Yeah, all the characters have bit parts. :-)
-Mike
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