Hmm. I did a quick poll of the programmers I know personally & would consider successful (for a reasonable value of success). One has a firm grasp of assembly (

Hmm. I did a quick poll of the programmers I know personally & would consider successful (for a reasonable value of success). One has a firm grasp of assembly (which makes sense because he uses it a lot), a handful have a firm grasp of C (most claim to have a "little" C but from experience with them they couldn't build anything w/o a book for guidance :P). So I don't agree with the hypothesis.