This reminds me of when I was a kid, and learning to write some C to "create games". At that time, things like functions were some vague and "magical" mechanism

This reminds me of when I was a kid, and learning to write some C to "create games". At that time, things like functions were some vague and "magical" mechanisms that I had to adhere to because that is how things are. I didn't even think more about them, taking them as "holy"; except only the one weird thing that were varargs functions, which seemed to do something strange and confusing, putting a disturbing crack into that perfect picture, that I had trouble wrapping my head around. It was only when this kid started learning assembly, by virtue of a book with an amazingly baiting title "How to write computer viruses", that things fell into place, and suddenly understanding the stack made everything clear and straightforward (if no less amazing, through appreciating the brilliant genius of the procedure call protocols!). And indeed, the first time opening a POP3 session to an email provider through telnet was also an amazing feeling; maybe even more visceral thanks to its "live coding"/immediate feedback aspect; but personally just a small bit less foundational. So, anyway, through this whole story, what I really wanted to say is - thank you for your service and approaching your teacher's post in a great way!