Re: [dev] mailto: and customi URIs in surf?

From: Alexander Keller <contact_AT_nycroth.com>
Date: Wed, 09 Nov 2016 12:42:57 -0500

This has become a C discussion, so I'll toss in here.

If you have a background in Python (most people who have coded before
seem to), I recently stumbled upon http://www.toves.org/books/cpy/. It's
light but covers enough to give you directions to study the language
further.

I personally would _not_ suggest learning C like many people do with
other languages. Most people these days tend to just dive in and code
something in a new language, using Stack Overflow or other internet
search results to find code snippets that do what they want. This almost
unilaterally guarantees buggy, unstable code, with many unhanded edge
cases, bad practices, and type casting gotchas.

It's solid and well understood languages with countless documentation
and support resources; this also means not all resources are created
equal. You will really need to know what the code you write is doing
(and what it is not doing). "The C Programming Language" is a solid
first choice at roughly 300 pages of insight. I would also suggest
getting a book on secure C coding best practices. "The CERT C Secure
Coding Standard" is my choice but it is a pretty hefty tomb at nearly
750 pages of engineering specifications.

For an insight into why C can really mess with you, one of my favourite
competitions is the underhanded C competition
(http://underhanded-c.org/). This is where people intentionally write
code that looks like it does one thing, even to C experts, while in
reality it does something completely different.

TL;DR If you spend the time to study a few good C books (not blogs or
forums) cover to cover and program based on the lessons learned with
minimal internet forum support, you'll do just fine.
Received on Wed Nov 09 2016 - 18:42:57 CET

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