I had something similar to this happen to me in my 2nd semester programming class at Berkeley. I was in the lab for a class that was taught in Java for data st

I had something similar to this happen to me in my 2nd semester programming class at Berkeley. I was in the lab for a class that was taught in Java for data structures (and C when the memory management talk started). We were 5 weeks into a 10 week class. The guy programming to my left turned to me and asked me what "double equals" (as in ==) meant. I was stunned, but then answered. Later it struck me: how the hell did this guy get through the metacircular evaluator in the first semester? How had he gotten through the previous 5 weeks of assignments? I think about it even now and wonder.