>You're the one forcing the choices.

"I would much rather [a person do X] than [a person do Y]"

I parse this kind of statement as a person doing X is more important than a person doing Y. I stated that I thought both were achievable. How have you parsed it?

Also trivia implies some memorized factoids. The entire point of the article is having an understanding of the underlying implementation of the compiler, maybe the implementation of the standard library, or the OS or the hardware ADDS to your knowledge about C making you a much more complete/well-rounded developer. Calling it C trivia is baffling to me.

>Life is too short to become an expert on C's dark corners, and I'm not even talking about C++'s.

Agreed !

> Also trivia implies some memorized factoids. The entire point of the article is having an understanding of the underlying implementation of the compiler, ...

That's some of the point of the article, but some of it is also about memorized factoids. There is a lot of focus on what different versions of the C standard say about different things, which is just factoids. There is a lot of focus on how different declaration syntax behaves (statics, linker visible, etc.), which is just factoids.

If you had to write code for a platform and the only compiler available was C89 compatible, you better know what syntax the C89 standard says is legal and not legal. Its simply called knowing the language. By your implied definition I see every single thing that anyone reads/learns as a 'factoid'. In my mind factoids imply some useless disconnected fact like the number of restricted keywords or the number of pages in the standard or the preferred wine of the standardization committee(its called beer I think :P). I guess we have a difference of opinion on that.

Also the difference in syntax and translation unit/linker behavior is not a random fact. Its the culmination of the thought process that goes into designing the language and also knowing a bit of the theory behind classical compilers/linkers.

It is probable that we have a disagreement about what counts as a "factoid", and maybe it's not a great word to be using ( I took it from the parent), but I do think there are real differences between some things you're conflating. Working within the framework of your example, I think understanding how compilation units and the linker work is far more fundamental than knowing when the the "static" keyword impacts linking and when it doesn't. If I know that I need some way to make my variable visible outside my compilation unit, I can look up the syntax to do it ("factoid"), but if I don't understand how linking works at all, I'm missing a more fundamental mental model. Of course, I absolutely think that a C programmer should know the syntax, it's just less important to remember such things than to understand the model.