The first edition of the book, published in 1978, discusses the original usage of C by AT&T; this "dialect" of C is sometimes referred to as K&R C. In 1988 a second edition was published which covers ANSI C. The book has since been translated into over 20 languages.
The style of formatting programs used in the book is often called "K&R style" or the "One True Brace Style".
The book is widely regarded as being very well written, due to the clarity in which it expresses the material combined with the breadth and density of the coverage. There are very few wasted words, while still being approachable. This clarity and conciseness for a highly technical subject is quite remarkable. These qualities make the book still quite useful even today.
It is also well known because it was the only coverage of the C language for some time before the standardization bodies developed the exhaustive specifications. The utility and portability of the language for its time also contributed to its popularity, thus making the book describing it a popular one.
Further reading
The C Programming Language. Kernighan & Ritchie, 1978. ISBN 0131103628
External link
Bell Labs page about the book (http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/cbook/)
C is in many ways the most important of the hundreds of programminglanguages that have been developed in the world to date.
C remains particularly popular in the world of Unix-likeoperating systems, and, for example, most of the Linux kernel (i.e., the core of the operating system) is written in C. Moreover, it is one of the most frequently studied languages in computer science classes.
C differs significantly from assemblylanguages in that it is much easier to read and write programs in it, particularly lengthy ones, because its syntax and vocabulary are much closer to those of the English language.
C's primary use is for "system programming", including implementing operating systems and embedded systemapplications, due to a combination of desirable characteristics such as code portability and efficiency, ability to access specific hardware addresses, ability to "pun" types to match externally imposed data access requirements, and low runtime demand on system resources.
One consequence of C's wide acceptance and efficiency is that the compilers, libraries, and interpreters of other higher-level languages are often implemented in C. C is used as an intermediate language by some higher-level languages.
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