21st Century C

Epilogue

Strike another match, go start anew—

—Bob Dylan, closing out his 1965 Newport Folk Festival set, “It’s All Over Now Baby Blue”

Wait!, you exclaim. You said that I can use libraries to make my work easier, but I’m an expert in my field, I’ve searched everywhere, and I still can’t find a library to suit my needs!

If that’s you, then it’s time for me to reveal my secret agenda in writing this book: as a C user, I want more people writing good libraries that I can use. If you’ve read this far, you know how to write modern code based on other libraries, how to write a suite of functions around a few simple objects, how to make the interface user-friendly, how to document it so others can use it, what tools are available so you can test it, how to use a Git repository so that others can contribute, and how to package it for use by the general public using Autotools. C is the foundation of modern computing, so when you solve your problem in C, then the solution is available for all sorts of platforms everywhere.

Punk rock is a do-it-yourself art form. It is the collective realization that music is made by people like us, and that you don’t need permission from a corporate review committee to write something new and distribute it to the world. In fact, we already have all the tools we need to make it happen.