Re:Ask HN: Which is the most useful CS/math topic that you h...
by warrenm on Thursday April 27, 2023 @12:26PM
(#35730524)
The most useful CS topic I know of is object indirection - aka pointers (and pointers to pointers)
Once you realize that everything is stored at an address (or group of addresses) "somewhere", your life gets much easier :)
Whether it's memory addresses for a linked list, inodes for [local] file storage, or an IP address for a network resource, they're all "the same" in the sense of "this thing can be found by going to that place"
The world wide web is just a complex linked list/graph with loops
But if you don't grok address/reference indirection, your life is much harder
Once you realize that everything is stored at an address (or group of addresses) "somewhere", your life gets much easier :)
Whether it's memory addresses for a linked list, inodes for [local] file storage, or an IP address for a network resource, they're all "the same" in the sense of "this thing can be found by going to that place"
The world wide web is just a complex linked list/graph with loops
But if you don't grok address/reference indirection, your life is much harder