December 2, 2025
C you in the comments
Beej's Guide to C Programming
Internet’s favorite C guide is back—nostalgia vs nitpicks
TLDR: Beej released a free, beta first volume of his C tutorial with lots of formats and examples. Comments erupted over repeat postings, an unofficial “avoid” list warning, and a spat about calling C “low-level,” revealing a classic clash between nostalgic fans and strict purists on what beginners should read.
Beej just dropped the first volume of his free C programming tutorial—packed with PDFs, code examples, and a GitHub repo—and he’s begging readers to email corrections because it’s beta. That humble vibe set the stage, but the real show happened in the comments, where the community lit up like a holiday tree. One early thread went full “is this posted again?” with veterans rolling their eyes and asking how many times this has hit Hacker News (tech forum) and Slashdot (old-school tech site). It’s tradition, apparently, and half the crowd loves the déjà vu.
Then the gloves came off: a commenter linked an iso-9899 page—an unofficial C community wiki—where Beej’s guide appears under “stuff to avoid.” Cue purists vs pragmatists. Some warned newbies away; others argued Beej’s approachable style beats gatekeeping and dry standards talk. Finally, the philosophical brawl: someone sighed at the classic line “C is a low level language.” Is C truly “low-level” (close to the machine), or is that oversimplified? The thread turned into a meme factory: “HN Bingo: Beej’s Guide square,” “post it again, Sam,” and jokes about pointer wars. Love it or loathe it, people showed up—and clicked. Meanwhile, beginners just want clear, free help.
Key Points
- •This is the first volume of Beej’s Guide to C Programming, presented as a tutorial.
- •The document is beta-quality and invites corrections via the provided email.
- •A second volume for library references is linked from the page.
- •The guide is available in multiple HTML and PDF formats, including ZIP downloads.
- •Example C code is provided, with instructions to build using make; source and contributions are available via GitHub.