Well I re-read that comment and it does sound like I'm lumping the call-by-value question with the other needlessly complex stuff (Mainly single line while loop depending on multiple operator precedence issues). Well let me correct myself, I didn't mean to do that.
The single line while loop there is just bristling with pitfalls. I'd reject such code in code review and ask it to be rewritten in more readable C. As an added bonus, this exercise would probably also have caught the original bug that started this discussion.
The pass-by-value question came from someone who hadn't written C code in years and I'm pretty sure a practicing C coder (in production code) would not have that question in the first place. Or if it does come from a fresh programmer just getting started, it'll only take one code review to get that straight (and probably earn that programme's work some added scrutiny for some time).
The single line while loop there is just bristling with pitfalls. I'd reject such code in code review and ask it to be rewritten in more readable C. As an added bonus, this exercise would probably also have caught the original bug that started this discussion.
The pass-by-value question came from someone who hadn't written C code in years and I'm pretty sure a practicing C coder (in production code) would not have that question in the first place. Or if it does come from a fresh programmer just getting started, it'll only take one code review to get that straight (and probably earn that programme's work some added scrutiny for some time).