The word you're looking for is probably intent, not purpose.

When I was twelve, I moved from QBasic to C. C isn't that difficult to understand. If the child doesn't show any interest, don't push him/her. It takes a certain level of curiosity to like programming. It isn't for everyone. Choosing a dumbed-down toy-language doesn't make a difference, but being a good teacher does.

Did you forget the 28800 baud modem? :-)

All algorithms can be described by lambda calculus: Wikipedia:Lamda_calculus

I loved AvP back in 1999. Sure, the campaign was short, but there was one for each race, remember? Besides, the *real* fun was to play multiplayer via Gamespy or MPlayer. I used to play 1 vs 7 team deathmatch against my buddies with me as alien and the other team as whatever race they wanted. I won single-handedly every time because the alien was so fast. Hit'n'run tactics for the win.

Sadly, they nerfed the alien in AvP2. That game *really* sucked. Instead of decent jumping, they added a pounce attack, which made your enemy explode, leaving no body to let you regain health. And yeah, I do agree with the franchise mix. The Alien and Predator universes are better separated than combined. I really look forward to Colonial Marines.

I'd claim that the He-Man Christmas special is worse. (requires Flash)

It's not always as clear-cut as this. Some code simply *is* complex by nature, or needs to be complex to meet certain requirements, like high performance. A real-life example could be finding the type of an instructions in a RISC instruction set where all the instructions is of the same fixed length. The 'clean' solution be something like:

int ParseInstruction(unsigned int instr)
{
    int i;
    unsigned int sbo,sbz;

    for(i=0; i<NUM_INSTR; ++i){
        sbo =instr_set_mask[i]; /* instruction set bit mask */
        sbz = instr_zero_mask[i]; /* instruction mask for required zero bits */
        if((instr & sbo) == sbo && (~instr & sbz) == sbz)
            return i;
    }
    return InstrUndefined;
}

Elegant, readable and very maintainable, but yet horribly slow for most solutions. Instead you end up with a nightmare of branches in order to avoid scanning through the whole instruction set for every instruction.  My point is that in practice, there is no way you can always make super maintainable code *and* fulfill all the requirements. Some solutions are butt ugly while still being the best one for the current problem. Heck, some of the easiest algorithms to read are the ones with the highest run time. For example long multiplication vs Toom Cook multiplication.
Premature optimization is evil though, and I agree with the rest of your post. I just think it came off as a bit purist.

There, I fixed that for you.

Incidentally, you have a number in your handle. I assume 4 is suppose to mean 'for'? :-)

The only prerequisite to use C code for "bare-metal" code is a working stack. That means setting the stack pointer to a sane value right after a RESET. I've coded lowlevel embedded stuff for the Gameboy Advance and GP2X with C only. Down to the interrupt handler.

I consider death penalty to be wrong in itself, as it works more as revenge rather than as a deterrent or rehabilitation. The government is no better than the criminal in that case.
But actually making someone *wait on death row* without knowing when he/she will die, is even more hideous. That's something I wouldn't wish my worst enemy. Or something I can imagine the worst serial killer do to a victim. It's pure evil. If capital punishment is deemed necessary, at least execute the punishment quickly without unnecessary waiting.

Troll? Thanks guys, I love you all. Too bad you guys didn't get the joke. You know.. some of use have waited *a long time* for a Linux port of Unreal 3. And you can bet your arse that their commercial SDK isn't coupled to a Windows build environment.

boooring!

Quake was not 3D either, in the true sense of the word. The engine did not support 'roll', i.e rotation around the Z-axis. I guess it boils down to the definition of 3D. In my head, "true" 3D is freedom in 3D directions without any restrictions, and free rotation in all three axes without causing gimbal lock. I'm not sure, but perhaps Descent fits my definition.