That wasn't my intention and I apologize if it came off that way. Also, I'm not that old and I certainly didn't start programming with assembly. My programming experience began with OOPs ( Java, C#, C++ ). Didn't really touch assembly until I went to college. Also, compilers is a basic core course you have to take to get a CS degree. How is something everyone has to learn elitist?
> I can assure you that I fully understood the concepts of pointers, variables, and references without knowing anything about assembly language or compilers. The concepts are not that difficult to grasp.
The concepts were fairly difficult for me. Especially pointers. I thought I understood it but then later on realized I didn't. Maybe other people have their eureka moments sooner. For me it happened when I built a compiler and did some assembly programming.
I just think knowing how things work under the hood will make you are better programmer. Especially something like assembly since all programming languages gets translated to assembly whether you are using C# or Haskell or Lisp or ML. I wasn't trying to offend anyone. But I'm sorry if others were offended by my comment. That was not my intention.