I disagree, for instance, here's a (IMO) exact description of the K&R 'relevance':
"It's not even a very good way to learn C. The idioms and best-practices for C programming have evolved substantially, even since the second edition was published, and some of the code samples look a bit dated."
And this is from 2004, meaning it got even more dated.(http://sites.google.com/site/steveyegge2/ten-great-books)
The reason K&R is still the canonical C book is because it represents the language better than any other book, before or since, not because the language stagnated since ANSI C was created.
That's true, but, IMO, there's a difference between learning to program in a language and learning a language (aka "Thinking in X"). The K&R is still the best source for the latter.
I find that K&R uses some really stupid functions to do things, and as a result causes many OTHER people do do some stupid things to do things.
I find that makes it wholly in adequate for thinking in C anymore. The "Never trust data" mantra which is now part and parcel of C dev is not at all shown in K&R.
This is exactly what I meant: I could make due with what I've already found for learning the syntax of Python -- but I haven't yet found the one that teaches me to think in Python.
"It's not even a very good way to learn C. The idioms and best-practices for C programming have evolved substantially, even since the second edition was published, and some of the code samples look a bit dated." And this is from 2004, meaning it got even more dated.(http://sites.google.com/site/steveyegge2/ten-great-books)
The reason K&R is still the canonical C book is because it represents the language better than any other book, before or since, not because the language stagnated since ANSI C was created.