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# What did you like about this book?
- URL: https://www.narendravardi.com/bad-book/
- Published: 2022-05-11T02:30:00.000Z
- Updated: 2022-06-01T07:34:33.000Z
- Author: Narendra Vardi
- Tags: Learnings, 2022

When I was studying in the first year of my undergrad studies, one of the frequent suggestions I received was to read ['The C Programming Language (K&R)'](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The%5FC%5FProgramming%5FLanguage?ref=narendravardi.com) book by the creators of the C programming language, [Brian Kernighan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian%5FKernighan?ref=narendravardi.com) and [Dennis Richie](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis%5FRitchie?ref=narendravardi.com). 

It was not just famous among the seniors and my mentors. It was famous even online. It stood in 4th place among [the single most influential book every programmer should read](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1711/what-is-the-single-most-influential-book-every-programmer-should-read?ref=narendravardi.com). It was also one of the books that I could find very easily in my college library. Because of all these reasons, it was natural for a student like me, who knew nothing about programming to pick it. 

I borrowed the book from the library, came to my room and started reading it. After reading for five minutes, I was confused. I looked at the book's cover page to ensure that I didn't borrow a foreign language book because that's how it made me feel. I could not understand even small things. After confirming that I was holding the correct book, I realised the bitterness of my situation and still chose to continue.

[![The C Programming Language, First Edition Cover](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0e/The_C_Programming_Language%2C_First_Edition_Cover.svg/256px-The_C_Programming_Language%2C_First_Edition_Cover.svg.png)](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The%5FC%5FProgramming%5FLanguage,%5FFirst%5FEdition%5FCover.svg?ref=narendravardi.com "Julesmazur, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons") 

Cover Page of K&R, first edition.

Things fell apart when I came to Section 1.2 of the book. This section had the Fahrenheit to Celsius conversion code. After reading that code, I felt I had made a terrible mistake by choosing *Information Technology* as my branch of my studies. The code was intimidating, and that scared me to an extent. I was horrified looking at the naming convention of the variables. That's such a high standard, no way I would make it. 

Immediately, I started to make alternative plans to spend the next four years getting a job in a different stream. This activity, however, was futile. So after some time, I gave up and went out for a walk, hoping it was too early to finalise anything (or maybe I didn't have many options left).

Thankfully for me, things changed over time. I read various other books and thus I didn't had to choose an alternative plan. 

Overtime, Ilearned thatK&R was not a beginner-friendly book. I wondered how people could recommend that book. Did they even read it? I do not know, but I can bet most of them did not.

Maybe next time, if someone recommends a book, I will ask them. "What did you like about this book?"

At least with this question, I can find out if the recommendation is genuine.

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