Preface to the Chinese Edition

When I first wrote C Traps and Pitfalls, I never dreamed that it would still be in print 14 years later! I believe that the reason for this book’s longevity is that it teaches some important lessons about C programming that are still not widely understood.

The aspects of C that invite mistakes are the same aspects that make it attractive for expert programmers. Accordingly, most people who set out to become C experts will make the same mistakes along the way——mistakes that will be there to be made as long as C continues to attract new programmers.

If you read a typical programming book, you will probably find that the author thinks that the most important part of becoming a good programmer is to learn as many details as possible about a particular language, library, or system. There is some truth in this notion of course, but it tells only part of the story. Details are easy to learn: All one needs is a reference book with a good index, and erhaps a more experienced colleague to point one in the right direction once in a while. It is much harder to understand the best ways of using what one already knows.

One way to gain such understanding is to learn what not to do.Programming languages, such as C, that are intended to be convenient for experts to use often invite misuse in ways that someone with enough experience can predict. By studying the mistakes that programmers make most often in such a language, one can not only avoid those mistakes, but one can also understand more deeply how the language works.

I am particularly pleased to learn about the Chinese translation of this book because the translation makes it available for the first time to such a large audience. If you read this book, I hope that it will help turn your frustration into happiness.

Andrew Koenig
Gillette, New Jersey, USA
October, 2002