> Wait, you are telling me, that people write even less readable code in C? Perhaps you are right. Perhaps people can really be that much without care.

I'm a person who has written a lot of c, readable and unreadable. It's not that folks don't care; I find that notion slightly offensive. It's that a lot of c programmers care about different things. And, especially those of an older school have a different mindset.

When you read c source, especially that labelled "exercise in minimalism", you should approach it as hallowed. Enter the file with a sense of reverence; lose the ego; ask not why the file wasn't written in service to you. As you have here, tsk tsk. Expect a challenge, a puzzle. Ignore the variable names; they may be misleading -- learn for yourself what role each variable takes on each line -- some of us will reuse a variable for multiple purposes throughout its lifetime. Humble yourself with the understanding that the code was not written for you. It was written for a machine infinitely more patient and methodical than you. Use that machine to execute and debug, watch and analyze, to discover the true meaning.

https://www.ioccc.org