Q 01/05

Which creator of the C programming language died in October 2011, only days after Apple co-founder Steve Jobs?

A) Dennis Ritchie

B) Ken Thompson

C) Brian Kernighan

D) Niklaus Wirth

Answer · why

A) Dennis Ritchie

Dennis Ritchie was found dead at his New Jersey home on October 12, 2011, aged 70. Steve Jobs had died seven days earlier, on October 5.

Q 02/05

The default and most widely used interpreter for which language, created by Guido van Rossum, is written in C?

A) Ruby

B) Perl

C) Python

D) PHP

Answer · why

C) Python

Python's standard interpreter is named CPython for exactly that reason. A rival implementation, PyPy, is written in a restricted dialect of the langua...

Q 03/05

Which operating system kernel, begun by a Finnish university student in 1991, is written mostly in C?

A) Minix

B) Linux

C) OpenBSD

D) Darwin

Answer · why

B) Linux

Linux was started by Linus Torvalds at the University of Helsinki, who announced it online as "just a hobby, won't be big and professional". Most of i...

Q 04/05

Which Epic Games engine, first built for a 1998 first-person shooter, is written in C++?

A) CryEngine

B) Frostbite

C) Source

D) Unreal

Answer · why

D) Unreal

Unreal Engine takes its name from Unreal, the 1998 shooter it was made for. Epic founder Tim Sweeney began developing it in 1995.

Q 05/05

The "sharp" in the name of the C# programming language was borrowed from which field?

A) Musical notation

B) Camera optics

C) Card playing

D) Knife making

Answer · why

A) Musical notation

Musical notation uses a sharp sign to raise a note by a semitone, so C# hints at a step up from C. The name is typed with a number sign because most k...