> "C is special in that, as I said, it has been, and remains, a very important programming language in its ubiquity and sheer power." In that case, you could s

> "C is special in that, as I said, it has been, and remains, a very important programming language in its ubiquity and sheer power." In that case, you could say the same about Java, Python, C#, etc... If being a "true" programmer is just about getting the job done, any of those languages will suffice. C may be a useful tool for certain performance critical code, but that's a very small fraction of what's required in most day-to-day programming activities. I would say the following list describes the key qualities of good code (in the order described, from most to least important, for most cases): Correctness, clarity, conciseness, performance. As for pointers, you can describe them at a high-level but to understand why they're a low-cost abstraction it's helpful to understand how computers work. That's the type of knowledge that C can help expose you to.