Richard Stallman Announces GNU C Language Reference Manual

[kylew77]

If it interests you, consider looking in adjacent fields. Dev Ops seems have really heated up, in recent years. There might be something in quality assurance, such as writing automated tests, which plays into your strengths. If you enjoyed your time with students, there could be some opportunities in training, also. My company deploys and services Linux-based appliances and has field techs who basically just have a Linux sysadmin type skill set. Another example might be installers of on-prem network-based equipment. Just a few examples.

I guess, what I'm saying is that you could be limiting yourself. If you think "inside the box", you pretty much know the best case scenario. If you think more laterally, you might find some surprises. Also, don't be afraid to take a chance on a couple startups, early in your career. The older you get, the harder it becomes to take on the risk.

Thanks Coder.

[coder]

At first it was a local job search but now it is a multi state. I'm currently searching for a job as a junior system administrator. I know a few other people who got jobs, two guys in my program got defense contractor jobs.

If it interests you, consider looking in adjacent fields. Dev Ops seems have really heated up, in recent years. There might be something in quality assurance, such as writing automated tests, which plays into your strengths. If you enjoyed your time with students, there could be some opportunities in training, also. My company deploys and services Linux-based appliances and has field techs who basically just have a Linux sysadmin type skill set. Another example might be installers of on-prem network-based equipment. Just a few examples.

I guess, what I'm saying is that you could be limiting yourself. If you think "inside the box", you pretty much know the best case scenario. If you think more laterally, you might find some surprises. Also, don't be afraid to take a chance on a couple startups, early in your career. The older you get, the harder it becomes to take on the risk.

[kylew77]

Did your job search include out-of-state opportunities? Or are you tied down, where you are? The job market for tech workers has been so hot that I find this surprising.

Did you ever get any feedback from interviewers about what you could do to makes yourself more a compelling candidate? Do you have any more successful friends or trusted acquaintances who could review your resume for red flags?

At first it was a local job search but now it is a multi state. I'm currently searching for a job as a junior system administrator. I know a few other people who got jobs, two guys in my program got defense contractor jobs.

[relsi1053]

Who?!!

[coder]

I'm well aware of how trash my university was. I had 0 job prospects at graduation so felt forced to go to grad school, no internships or part time jobs to show. I finished undergrad 6 years ago and the best job I've landed is a Data Center Technician role.

Did your job search include out-of-state opportunities? Or are you tied down, where you are? The job market for tech workers has been so hot that I find this surprising.

Did you ever get any feedback from interviewers about what you could do to makes yourself more a compelling candidate? Do you have any more successful friends or trusted acquaintances who could review your resume for red flags?

[kylew77]

Ask for your money back from the university - if they taught you C in your first year, it was a C coding class, not a computer science degree.

I'm well aware of how trash my university was. I had 0 job prospects at graduation so felt forced to go to grad school, no internships or part time jobs to show. I finished undergrad 6 years ago and the best job I've landed is a Data Center Technician role. Before that I was a help desk tech, and before that I was a Graduate Teaching Assistant. I had a moderately high ACT score and went to the closest school to home to maximize my money and I wound up getting a full ride through undergrad, BUT trash is trash even if for free.

[coder]

I'm curious to know why? Can you explain more please? Thank you!

Because C11 is different enough than C89. Many of those new language features not only deserve an introduction, but they also affect programming style, which is something else a good language manual tries to begin establishing. Some of these features also mean that you can shift attention away from aspects of the original standard, such as the way C99's inline functions drastically reduce the need for macros.

Some other notable additions in C99 and C11:

• Intermingled declarations & code
• // comments
• stdbool.h
• stdatomic.h
• threads.h
• compound literals
• designated initializers
• static assertions
• _Generic keyword
• unicode support
• variadic macros

Not that you'd necessarily cover all of these things, but at least you can dance around some of them in a way that acknowledges their existence.

[reza]

Though it's a very good book, I wouldn't recommend the 2nd edition (which I used) to anyone learning C, today.

I'm curious to know why? Can you explain more please? Thank you!

[Developer12]

The GFDL is a garbage license to begin with, there's a reason why I didn't include it in my enumeration. So that change was probably for the better, it's a pity that they made the CC-BY-SA option such a specific workaround instead of a general possibility.

It's exactly by design that they made it so narrow, and they would have made it far more narrow if they could have. In fact I think they would have preferred to name wikipedia itself specifically if they could have gotten away with it.

They will *never* make this sort of thing generally available. This entire act was blatant hypocrisy, unilaterally releasing an organization which was using one of their (still) touted licences from the legal obligations they had to their users.

For the FSF and their usual stances, this was philosophically equivalent to producing an updated GPLv4 with a clause allowing projects called "Linux" to be relicenced under the non-copyleft MIT. It's not hard to imagine that would spark considerable outrage, given virtually everyone who has ever contributed to linux has done so with the expectation that their work would remain governed by copyleft requirements forever. This is why Linus has explicitly stated that Linux does not carry the "or any later" clause, locking the FSF out of future meddling with Linux's copyright licencing.

[archkde]

Side note: Have people read up on the colossal fuckup with wikipedia? It used to be under the same licence as this reference book.....until the FSF wrote a *very* specific backdoor escape into a new version of the licence, with the express purpose of allowing the relicence of the whole of wikipedia as creative commons. Effectively conversion from GPL to BSD. Without the consent or consultation of any of the many prexisting contributors. see: https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/1376418013151338496

The FSF can and will use the "or any later version" clause to unilaterally relicence your work without your consent, should it suit their purposes. Do not include it. This is to say *nothing* of the absolute absurdity of transferring the copyright of your work to them, which they demand for many GNU projects.

The bottom line: Don't trust the FSF to do what's right, don't trust Stallman to do what's right. They are not incorruptible and concentrating all power over free software in one place was a Bad Fucking Idea from the start.

The GFDL is a garbage license to begin with, there's a reason why I didn't include it in my enumeration. So that change was probably for the better, it's a pity that they made the CC-BY-SA option such a specific workaround instead of a general possibility.