I’m sure @JensGustedt has a hidden philosoper in him somewhere. This description is pithy and genius:
“There are two categories of aspects to consider in a C program:
syntactical aspects
(how do we specify the program so the compiler understands it?)
and
semantic aspects
(what do we specify so the program does what we want it to do?).
In the following subsections, we will introduce the syntactical aspects (grammar) and three different semantic aspects: declarative parts (what things are), definitions of objects (where things are), and statements (what things are supposed to do).”
— Jens Gustedt, Modern C
https://gustedt.wordpress.com/2024/10/15/the-c23-edition-of-modern-c/
I think that’s C (and most basic programming) in a nutshell.
Original: https://toots.dgplug.org/@jason/113338071886753826