An array is a set of objects, all of the same type, allocated contiguously in memory. int x; is an int object. int a[4]; is four int objects allocated next to each other in memory. Having these objects allocated contiguously makes a lot of things easier. For instance, you can apply an operation to each of the objects in the array in turn using a loop. The code would be much the same no matter how big the array is; all you'd need to do is make sure your loop iterates the correct number of times. But none of this would be possible if these objects were allocated separately and had their own independent names. More on reddit.com

Protip: Intern your strings. A simple way... char *buffer; char **strings; const char *intern_str(const char *str); Buffer looks like this.... "\0Hello\0Word stuff\0babe.jpg\0\0\0\0..." The array of strings points into the buffer and is kept sorted by string value. Note: Only the pointers in strings are sorted, not the strings in buffer. intern_str checks if the string exist using binary search in sorted strings. If found it returns the found pointer. If not found it copies the string to the end of thebuffer, adds the pointer to strings, and returns that pointer. The leading zero in the buffer makes the preceding char '\0' for all strings, which can come in handy sometimes. Only sort when you must, of course. Or pick a data structure. Once you've interned the string you can pass it around as easy as an int. No worry about freeing the memory. And pointer equality is string equality. Clear it when you're done doing what you're doing, if needed. Or make a string table just for some specific operation and discard it when totally done. You can use offsets instead of pointers too. Less space and maybe less error prone since comparing a string with an interned one (which is an int) will be a warning. int from_str(const char *str); const char *to_str(int str); And you can even make it even safer by newtypeing your int offset into the string buffer. typedef struct atom { int offset; } atom; Oh, when I learned to intern strings it changed how I code in C. More on reddit.com

My preferred way to pick up skills for a language is still the comment section of StackOverflow Specifically, people will have a highly upvoted response, but then comments saying stuff like "This wont work great in because of " or "If you need take a look at because " Deep diving down one of those rabbit holes pretty much is always one TIL after another and I come out feeling like I learned some cool new tricks of the trade. More on reddit.com