Five years (plus eight days) ago, this blog went public with its first post. It was several months before the companion book, Beginning Programming with C For Dummies appeared, but I wanted the blog to be well-stocked with posts for those first, eager readers.

This website, c-for-dummies.com, is far older than the blog. I first hosted this site back in 1997. It was a companion to the two-volume set, C For Dummies, shown in Figure 1. Historically, this is the only two-volume For Dummies title and also the longest single title at over 1,000 pages. The publisher promised me that they’d never do that again!

Figure 1. The first C For Dummies covered a two-volume set; Vol. I (1994), Vol. II (1997).

The volumes were necessary because I wanted to cover C in gentle, measured pace that would appeal to beginners. It took three years to finish Volume II because the publisher pulled me off the C For Dummies project to work on other books.

When it came time for the C99 update, the publisher opted for a “thinner” book. My efforts resulted in the 800+ page-long C All-In-One Desk Reference For Dummies, Figure 2. This title remains the most popular, though it’s pretty dated and has a hefty errata.

Figure 2. This C title remains the most popular, despite being dated. (2004)

At the same time as the All-In-One came out, the publisher wanted me to write and update to the original two-volume set, C For Dummies, which would move at a slower pace. That book, shown in Figure 3, is only 380 pages, so it leaves out a lot of the C language. I put in my best, but I’m not pleased with the results because the book omits a lot C.

Figure 2. The “second edition” of C For Dummies is in reference to the first, two-volume set. (2004)

During this time, the website supported the books with occasional updates and bonus material. The site remained rather static, however. I wanted to do more frequent updates, but the site lacked any form of content management.

For the C11 update, I was given the opportunity to write a new C language For Dummies title, which became Beginning Programming with C For Dummies (2013). This is the current title, and I desired to tie it in tightly with this website: I created answers to exercises for this site, along with comments and updates. I also opted to use WordPress to host a blog. I would update it weekly with Lessons and monthly with Exercises and have been doing so successfully for five years now. That’s a total of 367 posts for almost 180,000 words of bonus material.

For this, the anniversary Lesson, I’ve concocted an attempt at obfuscated C. I enjoyed running programs like this when I first learned programming. Have fun!

#include <stdio.h>

int main()
{
    int m[] = {
        0x2821, 0x3030, 0x3900, 0x212E, 0x2E29,
        0x3625, 0x3233, 0x2132, 0x3901, 0x0000
    };
    int x = 0;

    while(m[x])
    {
        printf("%c%c",
                (m[x] >> 8) + 32,
                (m[x] & 0x00FF) + 32
              );
        x++;
    }
    putchar('\n');

    return(0);
}