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Date: Tue, 08 Feb 2011 15:01:39 -0500
From: Hyman Rosen <hyrosen@mail.com>
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Subject: Re: How do I write directly to a memory address?
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Date: 2011-02-08T15:01:39-05:00
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On 2/8/2011 2:43 PM, Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:
> Three candidates in a row I have interviewed for a C/C++/C# position could
> not answer the question how to test the 3rd bit of a byte in C. All three
> had 3+ years of programming "experience."

     (byte & (1 << (3 - 1)))

Just saying.

> Their bird-brains are pre-filled filled with rubbish
> unrelated to programming. E.g. how to use VisualStudio, MS-Word, Outlook
> and hundreds of other useless overblown tools etc. There is less and less
> place to memorize the ticks and pitfalls of C.

That's not a valid criticism. Much programming today is done
for platforms where even the simplest program requires a fairly
elaborate framework, because the old "one keyboard, one ASCII
terminal, one input, one output" paradigm does not exist there.
The tools are used to generate that framework and to assist in
programming within it. As you say, there is less and less time
to waste on programmers who insist on coding these frameworks
by hand from scratch.

> I am not sure if Ada could really save the world, but it is certain that C
> significantly aggravates the situation.

How is it the fault of C that we now program on these platforms?
How do you test the third bit of a byte in Ada? *Why* do you test
the third bit of a byte in any language? Are you sure that the
questions you are asking reflect the needs of your organization
rather than representing the "get off my lawn" screams of a paradigm
becoming obsolete?