# The Practice of Programming by Kernighan and Pike

3 Hacker News commenters recommended The Practice of Programming by Kernighan and Pike and 0 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 3 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** People recommend it for timeless programming advice from Bell Labs authors, and for steering beginners toward writing good code. Critics raised no complaints.

## Why people recommend it

- Timeless advice from Bell Labs authors (2 comments): "I will always associate him with Bell Labs and Unix and The Practice of Programming" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46392626)) "It's not that long and much of it is timeless." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47427700))
- Helped beginners learn to code well (1 comments): "steered me in a really good direction when I was first learning to write code" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45967646))
- Short and mostly timeless (1 comments): "It's not that long and much of it is timeless." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47427700))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Crafting Interpreters by Robert Nystrom](https://hackerapproved.com/p/crafting-interpreters.md): 60 recommend
- [Clean Code by Robert C. Martin](https://hackerapproved.com/p/clean-code.md): 31 recommend
- [The Pragmatic Programmer by Hunt and Thomas](https://hackerapproved.com/p/pragmatic-programmer.md): 28 recommend
- [How to Design Programs by Felleisen, Findler, Flatt and Krishnamurthi](https://hackerapproved.com/p/how-to-design-programs.md): 18 recommend
- [Mastering Emacs by Mickey Petersen](https://hackerapproved.com/p/mastering-emacs.md): 17 recommend

## Where to get it

- [See price on Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/dp/020161586X?tag=hackerapprove-20) (affiliate link)
- [Bookshop.org](https://bookshop.org/a/130825/9780201615869) (affiliate link)

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "The Practice of Programming by Kernighan and Pike", https://hackerapproved.com/p/practice-of-programming/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).