C Review

[foss at ihlpg.UUCP]

: I am currently finishing up a new text book on C with a colleague
: of mine and we just received the last of several technical reviews.
: This particular reviewer makes some statements that we find hard
: to accept. However, we're just two people, so we decided to get
: some opinions from other C programmers. Below is a list of some
: his statements. Is this guy for real? Your comments would be
: greatly appreciated. Incidentally, the text is not an intro
: text, it assumes the reader has finished a course in Pascal.
: 
: "... 95% of all C programmers couldn't give you a good
: explanation of the term lvalue..."
: 
: "... Switch/case could be classified as rarely used and should be
: kept till later.
: 
: "... very few C programmers know much about sizeof..."
: 
: "... 99%  of  all  professional C  programmers  have no idea
: what typedef is all about, couldn't care less and probably
: won't ever need it."
: 
: "... 99%  of  all  professional C  programmers  have no idea
: what the comma operator is all about, couldn't care less and
: probably won't ever need it."
: 
: "... Leave the comma operator altogether. An intro book is no
: place for obscure and unmaintainable tricks..."
: 
: "... Pointers to functions ... few C programmers understand
: them or would ever need them..."
: 
: "... a C programmer never needs to know what a byte is..."

I think your reviewer likes to think that he/she is in the vast
majority of C programmers.  In fact, he/she is in a very sad
minority and is not qualified to read your *NON* intro textbook.