8 ms·

I suspect this article made a lot of people feel stupid, or in other words, it taught us something. Sometimes the ego gets out of check. I think the article is

by btrask 10y ago

I suspect this article made a lot of people feel stupid, or in other words, it taught us something. Sometimes the ego gets out of check. I think the article is well-presented and educational.

grobbles 10y ago
I suspect this article made a lot of people feel stupid Anyone who doesn't understand pointer arithmetic in C has no business being involved with C. I'm not trying to be negative about this post, but the notion that people are feeling "stupid" about this is hysterical. HN has absolutely trended toward utterly beginner type C information being some novelty on here. It's a bit bizarre, and the general skill level of the site has catastrophically declined.
gragas 10y ago
>I think this article made a lot of people feel stupid 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.
- jmspring 10y ago
  There are many that 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.
  - gragas 10y ago
    >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 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.
  - vostok 10y ago
    > 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.
    - ageofwant 10y ago
      > 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 ?
      - jonathankoren 10y ago
        If he's listing LaTeX as a programming language and talking about how little programming he had, I suspect he's stuck with R or Matlab.
        spicyj 10y ago
        TeX is a "real" programming language.
        kevin_thibedeau 10y ago
        It's a macro expander. Good luck debugging that.
      - vostok 10y ago
        I find that python requires the least boilerplate code out of the most common programming languages. I mostly dislike it on aesthetic grounds. I really like the modern incarnations of C++ and statically typed ML-influenced, but not necessarily ML-derived, languages. There are many criticisms that one could make about R, but I like some of its lispier features.
  - yzmtf2008 10y ago
    Just because you grew up with C and know many of the details doesn't make it necessary for others to know that much, especially when the job doesn't call upon it. I grew up with C as well, but I understand it is possible to make meaningful contributions without understanding C.
  - mjevans 10y ago
    I don't think it /has/ to be C. 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.
- logicallee 10y ago
  >I think the article isn't obvious only to those who have a weak understanding of the language. 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 :)
  - gragas 10y ago
    I think less than 15% of professional C programmers have a weak understanding of the language. One only needs a basic understanding of pointer arithmetic to understand why `(&arr + 1) - arr` is the size of the array.
    - logicallee 10y ago
      so you think 85% of programmers who write C can parse (&arr + 1) - arr to find the size of the array, without the use of the article? This is surprisingly high and I am pretty sure at least the majority of people who get paid to write C would fail that. Not because it's not the case that they "should" know it, but simply because it's possible to write C without knowing it, and some people do so. For example consider embedded programmers who might not be specialists at all. I very much doubt that 85% of C programmers know these things. It would be interesting to find out!
      - psyc 10y ago
        I can only speak for myself. I wrote C code for many years, a long time ago. I'm 100% certain that I never had occasion to use a "pointer to array" type. If you asked me a series of leading questions, like "Can you have a pointer to array of 10 ints?" and "What would happen if you increment that?" I would probably get the right answer, with low confidence. There's almost no way I would have thought of this way of getting the array size without reading something like this article. And what's wrong with learning something from an article? This is really not about pointer arithmetic at all. Rather it's about a particular use of C's near-infinitely composable type system.

by btrask 10y ago

I suspect this article made a lot of people feel stupid, or in other words, it taught us something. Sometimes the ego gets out of check. I think the article is well-presented and educational.

grobbles 10y ago

I suspect this article made a lot of people feel stupid Anyone who doesn't understand pointer arithmetic in C has no business being involved with C. I'm not trying to be negative about this post, but the notion that people are feeling "stupid" about this is hysterical. HN has absolutely trended toward utterly beginner type C information being some novelty on here. It's a bit bizarre, and the general skill level of the site has catastrophically declined.

gragas 10y ago

>I think this article made a lot of people feel stupid 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.

jmspring 10y ago
There are many that 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.
- gragas 10y ago
  >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 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.
- vostok 10y ago
  > 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.
  - ageofwant 10y ago
    > 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 ?
    - jonathankoren 10y ago
      If he's listing LaTeX as a programming language and talking about how little programming he had, I suspect he's stuck with R or Matlab.
      - spicyj 10y ago
        TeX is a "real" programming language.
        kevin_thibedeau 10y ago
        It's a macro expander. Good luck debugging that.
    - vostok 10y ago
      I find that python requires the least boilerplate code out of the most common programming languages. I mostly dislike it on aesthetic grounds. I really like the modern incarnations of C++ and statically typed ML-influenced, but not necessarily ML-derived, languages. There are many criticisms that one could make about R, but I like some of its lispier features.
- yzmtf2008 10y ago
  Just because you grew up with C and know many of the details doesn't make it necessary for others to know that much, especially when the job doesn't call upon it. I grew up with C as well, but I understand it is possible to make meaningful contributions without understanding C.
- mjevans 10y ago
  I don't think it /has/ to be C. 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.
logicallee 10y ago
>I think the article isn't obvious only to those who have a weak understanding of the language. 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 :)
- gragas 10y ago
  I think less than 15% of professional C programmers have a weak understanding of the language. One only needs a basic understanding of pointer arithmetic to understand why `(&arr + 1) - arr` is the size of the array.
  - logicallee 10y ago
    so you think 85% of programmers who write C can parse (&arr + 1) - arr to find the size of the array, without the use of the article? This is surprisingly high and I am pretty sure at least the majority of people who get paid to write C would fail that. Not because it's not the case that they "should" know it, but simply because it's possible to write C without knowing it, and some people do so. For example consider embedded programmers who might not be specialists at all. I very much doubt that 85% of C programmers know these things. It would be interesting to find out!
    - psyc 10y ago
      I can only speak for myself. I wrote C code for many years, a long time ago. I'm 100% certain that I never had occasion to use a "pointer to array" type. If you asked me a series of leading questions, like "Can you have a pointer to array of 10 ints?" and "What would happen if you increment that?" I would probably get the right answer, with low confidence. There's almost no way I would have thought of this way of getting the array size without reading something like this article. And what's wrong with learning something from an article? This is really not about pointer arithmetic at all. Rather it's about a particular use of C's near-infinitely composable type system.