1. I and other normal MIDDLE CLASS students did NOT have access to the

internet.

2. There were NO competent faculties around to guide us.

3. We had to use whatever WE HAD.

Do not just crib about the above points. It was mostly the same with me too.

FYKI I got a decent access to the internet only about 5 years ago.

What is decent? How is it defined. If you are talking about a broadband connection, then I do not have one yet.

You might've been on the internet ever since its inception but we mere mortals have not.

One more presumption on your part.

...

These are not clever hacks by any stretch of the imagination. I have not had the privilege to look at the code written by any of these companies, but I have never across such things in any project worth its name. K&R is quite categorical about discouraging such usages.

Yes, but it is the REQUIREMENT of the times.

*sigh*

I have not come across a single place where YPK stresses the importance of using such kind of constructs. All he shows the student is that IT IS POSSIBLE to do such stuff with C.

When you do not explicitly inform the reader that this particular technique is not good practice and compiler dependent, you are implicitly encouraging him/her to repeat and believe in such practice. Even Turbo C/C++ clearly documents which component of the C/C++ libraries are portable and ANSI compliant to what extent.

Buddy, you might've had CSE gurus all around you but most average

#include <stdio.h> int main(void){ while(1) printf("presumptions\n"); return 0; }

So we have to go by what we can find and YPK's LUC is the most visible book around. Few people have heard about K&R's books. Well thats how the ground reality is.

My goodness. You know about C. Not only that, you are so inclined to learn it that you go looking for books. However you never heard about the souls who wrote it. Even if that is true, it does not change the fact LUC leaves a lot to be desired.

And dont even get me started about what kind of students we have. They cant even learn using books by themselves

There is no need to get started. Not every one is capable of doing everything, and they should concentrate on doing what they can do best.

The 'normal' student doesnt understand how a compiler works. 99.9999% of our engineers dont know what a compiler is written in. There is no question of misleading anybody. The rest 0.0001% students are smart enough to find the right way!

Nonsense.

Regards, Debarshi