LR-0001: Learner Background & C17 Baseline

The learner comes with professional Node.js / JavaScript experience and working familiarity with Go, Rust, and basic C syntax/memory concepts. The goal is to bridge high-level runtime mental models to bare-metal systems engineering in ISO C17 to become job-ready for systems roles.

🔍 Evidence

User stated familiarity with Node.js, Go, Rust, basic C syntax, and specified a target environment of macOS/Linux with Clang/GCC and CMake.
Knowledge diagnostic session documented in Grilling Diagnostic: C Systems Programming Knowledge verified strong grasp of storage classes, data segment lifetimes, and heap allocator mechanics.

🚀 Implications for Curriculum

Skip generic beginner programming concepts (variables, basic loops, basic conditionals).
Ground lessons in low-level memory mechanics, undefined behavior elimination, strict aliasing, cache locality, and POSIX systems interfaces.
Anchor concepts using comparisons to Rust ownership/borrowing and Node.js event loops / V8 memory management.
Deepen areas flagged during diagnostics: struct alignment/tail padding, bitwise opcode unpacking, and function pointer jump tables.