> So, I don't disbelieve you but I've known 20 year C experts have their WTF moments when shown code that would seem to work but doesn't.
If after 20 years they don't know the C spec well enough to know if a piece of code should work or not, I simply wouldn't consider them very good programmers.
I never said they wouldn't create bugs, but not fully understanding a line of code (outside of needing to conceptualize external dependencies) is certainly frightening after 20 years of working in C.
What it shows is that sort of code never shows up in practical C. There's stuff in Java (and Javascript for that matter) I don't understand, and I've been programming in those for about as long as anybody.
If after 20 years they don't know the C spec well enough to know if a piece of code should work or not, I simply wouldn't consider them very good programmers.