«

I am applying for my first jobs after completing my PhD. I have been asked
by a company to go and take a C programming test to see how my C skills are.
Apparantly this test is mostly finding errors in small snippets of code but
I was wondering if anyone could give me tips on what kind of things I should
be looking out for. The one area I dont feel confident in is how to declare
arrays of pointers and initialising multi-dimensional arrays.

Any advice would be very welcome.

Thanks
Allan

"Allan M. Bruce" <> writes:
> I am applying for my first jobs after completing my PhD. I have been asked
> by a company to go and take a C programming test to see how my C skills are.
> Apparantly this test is mostly finding errors in small snippets of code but
> I was wondering if anyone could give me tips on what kind of things I should
> be looking out for. The one area I dont feel confident in is how to declare
> arrays of pointers and initialising multi-dimensional arrays.

<http://www.c-faq.com/>, particularly section 6.

--
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) kst- <http://www.ghoti.net/~kst>
San Diego Supercomputer Center <*> <http://users.sdsc.edu/~kst>
We must do something. This is something. Therefore, we must do this.

Allan M. Bruce wrote:
> I am applying for my first jobs after completing my PhD. I have been asked
> by a company to go and take a C programming test to see how my C skills are.
> Apparantly this test is mostly finding errors in small snippets of code but
> I was wondering if anyone could give me tips on what kind of things I should
> be looking out for. The one area I dont feel confident in is how to declare
> arrays of pointers and initialising multi-dimensional arrays.
>
> Any advice would be very welcome.
>
> Thanks
> Allan
>
>
Hi Allan.

A PhD in what? CS?

My advice would be to read more C books. Declaring arrays of pointers
and initializing multi-dimensional arrays is straightforward.

You can ask specific questions about C here in this newsgroup.

--
Joe Wright
"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."
--- Albert Einstein ---

"Joe Wright" <> wrote in message
news:. ..
> Allan M. Bruce wrote:
>> I am applying for my first jobs after completing my PhD. I have been
>> asked by a company to go and take a C programming test to see how my C
>> skills are. Apparantly this test is mostly finding errors in small
>> snippets of code but I was wondering if anyone could give me tips on what
>> kind of things I should be looking out for. The one area I dont feel
>> confident in is how to declare arrays of pointers and initialising
>> multi-dimensional arrays.
>>
>> Any advice would be very welcome.
>>
>> Thanks
>> Allan
> Hi Allan.
>
> A PhD in what? CS?
>
> My advice would be to read more C books. Declaring arrays of pointers and
> initializing multi-dimensional arrays is straightforward.
>
> You can ask specific questions about C here in this newsgroup.
>

My PhD is in Computing Science - more specifically Artificial Intelligence.
Its been a while since I did any C programming, but I am fairly knowledgable
as far as I know. I will dig out the old C books and have a look through
them and then post back any problems I may encounter.

Thanks
Allan

Allan M. Bruce wrote:
> I am applying for my first jobs after completing my PhD. I have been asked
> by a company to go and take a C programming test to see how my C skills are.
> Apparantly this test is mostly finding errors in small snippets of code but
> I was wondering if anyone could give me tips on what kind of things I should
> be looking out for. The one area I dont feel confident in is how to declare
> arrays of pointers and initialising multi-dimensional arrays.
>
> Any advice would be very welcome.
>
An old favourite is questions about he arguments to printf and scanf.
Have a look through this group's archives and see if you can answer most
of the posted FAQs.

--
Ian Collins.

Allan M. Bruce wrote:
> "Joe Wright" <> wrote in message
> news:. ..
>> Allan M. Bruce wrote:
>>> I am applying for my first jobs after completing my PhD. I have been
>>> asked by a company to go and take a C programming test to see how my C
>>> skills are. Apparantly this test is mostly finding errors in small
>>> snippets of code but I was wondering if anyone could give me tips on what
>>> kind of things I should be looking out for. The one area I dont feel
>>> confident in is how to declare arrays of pointers and initialising
>>> multi-dimensional arrays.
>>>
>>> Any advice would be very welcome.
>>>
>>> Thanks
>>> Allan
>> Hi Allan.
>>
>> A PhD in what? CS?
>>
>> My advice would be to read more C books. Declaring arrays of pointers and
>> initializing multi-dimensional arrays is straightforward.
>>
>> You can ask specific questions about C here in this newsgroup.
>>
>
> My PhD is in Computing Science - more specifically Artificial Intelligence.
> Its been a while since I did any C programming, but I am fairly knowledgable
> as far as I know. I will dig out the old C books and have a look through
> them and then post back any problems I may encounter.
I'd be curious to know what types of C books you hit along the way to
your dissertation. frank

>>
>> My PhD is in Computing Science - more specifically Artificial
>> Intelligence. Its been a while since I did any C programming, but I am
>> fairly knowledgable as far as I know. I will dig out the old C books and
>> have a look through them and then post back any problems I may encounter.
> I'd be curious to know what types of C books you hit along the way to your
> dissertation. frank

None! The development was done completely in Java, although coding isnt very
important in a PhD, its more about the ideas...
Allan

Allan M. Bruce wrote:
>>>My PhD is in Computing Science - more specifically Artificial
>>>Intelligence. Its been a while since I did any C programming, but I am
>>>fairly knowledgable as far as I know. I will dig out the old C books and
>>>have a look through them and then post back any problems I may encounter.
>>
>>I'd be curious to know what types of C books you hit along the way to your
>>dissertation. frank
>
>
> None! The development was done completely in Java, although coding isnt very
> important in a PhD, its more about the ideas...

A decent employer should appreciate that and be more interested in your
ability to contribute to their organisation, rather than your intimate
knowledge of C.

--
Ian Collins.

Ian Collins <ian-> wrote:

> A decent employer should appreciate that and be more interested in your
> ability to contribute to their organisation, rather than your intimate
> knowledge of C.

Yes. I think there are plenty of people who have enough familiarity with
language X to pass a test, but nevertheless are bad programmers.
Hiring a C programmer who happens to have memorized every detail about
printf() and scanf() is a bad idea, IMO. My advice to OP: Learn
enough to get an interview, and if they can't figure out that you are
a great programmer who merely is not a C guru, they probably aren't
worth working for.

--
Christopher Benson-Manica | I *should* know what I'm talking about - if I
ataru(at)cyberspace.org | don't, I need to know. Flames welcome.

"Ian Collins" <ian-> wrote
> Allan M. Bruce wrote:
>>>>My PhD is in Computing Science - more specifically Artificial
>>>>Intelligence. Its been a while since I did any C programming, but I am
>>>>fairly knowledgable as far as I know. I will dig out the old C books
>>>>and
>>>>have a look through them and then post back any problems I may
>>>>encounter.
>>>
>>>I'd be curious to know what types of C books you hit along the way to
>>>your
>>>dissertation. frank
>>
>> None! The development was done completely in Java, although coding isnt
>> very
>> important in a PhD, its more about the ideas...
>
> A decent employer should appreciate that and be more interested in your
> ability to contribute to their organisation, rather than your intimate
> knowledge of C.
>
Exactly my thoughts.
If you can program an artifical intellignece routine in Java then you can
learn C.
Unless you are desperate for any job, or unless it is a very small company
with naive management, you probably want to be looking elsewhere.

--
Play Alice in Wonderland card game. (Windows only)
www.personal.leeds.ac.uk/~bgy1mm