[bee_rider]

I don’t really get the first example.

> Why do we need variables?

> How variables are really stored?

> The type of variables matter?

These aren’t questions that a junior engineer couldn’t answer. These are questions that somebody who has passed a single programming class ought to be able to answer.

Then they have questions about this vite platform, which I’ve never heard of, but it seems like they are asking “does software have dependencies?”

It makes me a little suspicious of the article. It looks they’ve set up a contrast: packers vs mappers, where packers are the bad result to end up aligned with (then, if you want to be a mapper, come join me!). But it seems like an over-shoot. The questions they have the packers failing seem to indicate some wild levels of incompetence.

Sorta like those online IQ tests that always tell you that you are a genius.

[marcosdumay]

Honestly, are those tricky questions the author had a too superficial knowledge to identify?

> Why do we need variables?

Do we even need them? You mean variables that vary? If so there are many languages that don't have them at all. Or you mean just naming values?

> How variables are really stored?

That is incredibly complicated. Variables don't exist on the executable like they do on your source code. They are just an abstraction.

> The type of variables matter?

Well, what "type" even means? There are PHD thesis written on this.

[romanhn]

I suspect he's thinking about the stack vs heap distinctions.

[protomolecule]

So why do we need variables?

[bee_rider]

It is a broad question, so here’s a broad answer:

A computer program is a sequence of instructions for the computer to follow, to transform some input into some output. To write useful and interesting programs, it is helpful to have some way of representing quantities which might change depending on those inputs.

[jnovek]

I hope the question isn’t intended to have a single “right” answer because it’s very vague.