I would say that the actual software component of Minecraft isn't in beta so much as it's the "game mechanics" side of it. It's like having a board with pieces, but not all the rules are written yet.
Two of the more critically acclaimed (or at least fan favorites) titles:
A Mind Forever Voyaging
Trinity
Both games really emphasize the narrative bankruptcy of modern games. The fact that people were developing games like this back in the 80s is kind of mind blowing. If Bioware put out 'A Mind Forever Voyaging' with nice shiny graphics the gaming press would be all over it as the greatest game ever.
I may be using the word 'modern' a bit liberally here, but these are all more recent than K&R at least. 'C A Reference Manual' I think is what a lot of people really want out of a C book and 'Expert C'/'C Traps and Pitfalls' both help with all of the less intuitive parts of the language that you don't really get out of K&R.
I originally learned to code with QBASIC and then C but if I had to do it all over again I would pick a language with a REPL (so ruby, python, lisp etc.) That speeds up the understanding of the language dramatically in my opinion. Being able to instantly experiment and get results is priceless.
Maybe I'm missing something here but it seems that lately it has been pretty popular to post other peoples e-mail conversations (see the whole TechCrunch vs. Fortune post a while back). I'm starting to think you shouldn't e-mail anyone who runs a major tech blog unless you want to see it made public.