When I was learning C in the eighties, I bought a book about 3D programming, the worst programming book I've read. I believe that examples worked, at least the ones that I typed did, but the style was atrocious. The concept of function parameters seemed to be totally alien to the author. The idiot created x1, X1, x2, X3, x, xthis, xthat... variables instead. He was a former BASIC book author too.

I can't warn you because I put it to the trash bin long ago.

He was a former BASIC book author too

Hmm, I'm starting to see a pattern. Is it possible BASIC, plus lack of internet back in the day, plus attrocious books are the reasons for truning poeple into terrible programmers? I happen to know only a couple of seniors but without exception their code, no matter what language written in today, is horrible on all fronts. I used to think it was a lack of attention to detail, their lack of wanting to strive for even the tiniest bit of more than just 'good enough for tady'. Possibly stemming from lack of education and lack of continuous self-education. But maybe there's more to it. Maybe they were influenced by a bad book. And/or by a not-so-optimal language like BASIC.

oldcynic

I would say "it depends".

Just as poor programmers came later from Visual Basic, or MSVC++ (somehow we went through a phase were everyone coming for interview with MSVC++ actually had C with classes, and for a while it was a warning sign and standing joke at the place I then worked). Getting people who claimed C++ who actually knew it was pretty challenging around the millennium.

In the 80s just about everyone who had an 8 bit started with BASIC, and an awful lot of them managed to go on to be perfectly acceptable programmers when they moved on to C, C++, assembler, and more recent languages, or even turned out a decent game in something like Blitz Basic on the Amiga. Then again there were some who couldn't move beyond BASIC, because it was simple enough almost everyone could piece something together with it - so even back then it was a warning like PHP can be today.

It's not age, and it's not BASIC - there's plenty of younger folks turning out abysmal code who've never been near it.

I wonder how I'd have turned out if I'd learnt C from one of this guy's books instead of K&R and having a couple of experts handy.

dinglejungle

Might be totally wrong, but it's possible that MSVC++ programmers typically knowing 'C with classes' might come from the gaming world, as that's a fairly accurate description of some very popular game engines (Valve's Source engine[1] being the one I'm most familiar with, where e.g. std::string is unused in favor of char/wchar arrays).

[1] https://github.com/ValveSoftware/source-sdk-2013 (originally released in 2004)