I learned to code C from a book years before I touched Lisp, and knowing operator precedence didn't help me understand one bit about what the code was actually

I learned to code C from a book years before I touched Lisp, and knowing operator precedence didn't help me understand one bit about what the code was actually doing or where the rules of the language came from. It wasn't until I found SICP that I could claim to understand programming. The important thing about learning to program is having an accurate mental model of what goes on in your program. C, and especially C++, make that much harder than it actually is and the way Lisp presents it.