tada@athena.mit.edu (Michael Zehr) (08/29/89)
The debate on being a C expert has gotten sidetracked into a discussion of strange syntaxes, which in my opinion really misses the point. To be an expert C programmer, you need the same skills as you need to be an expert programmer in any other language. Specifically, you need the ability to write clear, concise, and maintainable code; to properly formulate the problem in an exact manner; to implement an algorithm efficiently; etc. Concerning the syntax questions, being an expert programmer includes knowing how to read a language reference manual! plus knowing what they know and what they have to look up. If you're an expert programmer, you shouldn't be writing things like i[a] when what you mean is a[i] anyway. And if you're maintaining code like that, you should know enough to look in the manual if it doesn't make sense, and change it so the next person doesn't have to look in the manual. (my list of skills for programming isn't meant to be complete -- my point is that the syntax of the language isn't the only or even major concern.) -michael j zehr