I don't think so. Anyone with a solid understanding of C understands pointer arithmetic. I think the article isn't obvious only to those who have a weak understanding of the language.
I got asked some years back why I defaulted to C in some interview questions -- I grew up with the language, understand the nuances and many of the implementations.
It's now possible to make your way through a university education in CS without ever touching or understanding C. This is a problem.
I did not study CS, but I had a number of CS modules/classes. LaTeX was the only programming language I recall using. Students with better handwriting could probably get away with not doing any programming at all.
It's not clear to me that this is a problem, but I imagine that the systems requirement of most CS programs will involve C.
For what it's worth, I default to python in interviews even though it's my least favorite out of the languages that I use frequently.
Why is that ? I would image that you'd use the language you are most comfortable with and trust the most during an interview ? What makes Python a good 'interview' language but a less good bread and butter language for you ?
Having done even a semester of any type of assembly (not just part of a class) is probably enough. Other /low level/ languages like Forth (Imagine you /only/ had assembly, and wanted to build something a /little/ less painful) could probably work too.
I suppose that this is the case. But really, to me this is article does not reveal anything beyond what I already knew from basic pointer arithmetic.
Hi! Could you take a guess at what percentage of C programmers who write C professionally fit your definition of that (I realize you were being hasty in your phrasing, but still)?
Obviously your answer should be betweeen 0% (no programmer who writes C professionally) and 100% (every programmer who writes C professionally.)
I'm genuinely curious what you think! Thanks :)
I very much doubt that 85% of C programmers know these things. It would be interesting to find out!
