> Syntax? yes, because so many other languages have copied that syntax in superficial ways. being familiar with C syntax (ugly as it is, way too much punctuati

> Syntax? yes, because so many other languages have copied that syntax in superficial ways. being familiar with C syntax (ugly as it is, way too much punctuation imo) automatically makes you able to comfortably read Java, JavaScript (sort of), PHP, C#, etc. it's kind of a shame because aesthetically speaking its so full of bad choices, but it is still very influential. > Pointers? yes, absolutely this. most memory managed languages don't give you pointers at all and let the GC and objects implementation handle that completely. however, understanding the details of reference, dereference, and memory addressing is good for developing insight into how things are implemented at a lower level and what the performance characteristics of those implementations will be. > Dealing with garbage? C is a manual memory management language. Doesn't even have smart pointers or optional GC. To avoid memory leaks you have to be extremely dilligent about error handling and cleaning up/deallocating on every possible program branch. this will really hammer home a few points about rigor that are easy to gloss over in memory managed languages. however, it's a pain in the butt and I'm really really glad I don't have to do manual memory management on a daily basis. still, learning a bit about this has made me a lot more sensitive to possible memory leaks that turn up even in higher level languages.