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From: James Kuyper <jameskuyper@alumni.caltech.edu>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Top 10 most common hard skills listed on resumes...
Date: Sun, 8 Sep 2024 10:12:17 -0400
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On 9/8/24 00:39, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
....
> That's why I immediately see the necessity that compiler creators need
> to know them in detail to _implement_ "C". And that's why I cannot see
> how the statement of the C-standard's "most important purpose" would> sound reasonable (to me). ...

I agree - the most important purpose is for implementors, not developers.

> ... I mean, what will a programmer get from the
> "C" standard that a well written text book doesn't provide?

What the C standard says is more precise and more complete than what
most textbooks say. Most important for my purposes, it makes it clear
what's required and allowed by the standard. For most of my career, I
worked under rules that required my code to avoid undefined behavior, to
work correctly regardless of which choice implementations make on
unspecified behavior, with a few exceptions.