When I read "C code" in this thread - I assume people mean C and C++ together, since they're both capable of the same low-level stuff. The thing is, the new co

When I read "C code" in this thread - I assume people mean C and C++ together, since they're both capable of the same low-level stuff. The thing is, the new compilers, static analysis, JIT'ing, ... available these days for C++ makes it the best time ever to write C++ in a reliable way, and being technology that is being used in the real world, this will only improve. There's a reason the C++ language is undergoing a lot of changes nowadays, for the better. After years of no movement at all, C++11 finally arrived, supporting features improving general reliability and memory-management (single pointers, smart pointers, auto type, ...), and C++14 is on it's way. While old programs will still work, the core language evolves and so do the generally accepted standard/best practices, that when generally accepted provide very reliable code. I work on quite a large C++ code-base, and both our test-team and static analysis tools rarely find "programming errors". Functional bugs - sure, you still have those like you have in any program, but real end-of-the-world memory corruptions or leaks are rare to completely absent. The only tricky part I guess is threading, although analysis tools have massively improved here - and this is an issue in pretty much every language that understands threads. The nice thing about learning C is that you get to understand what exactly is happening, and while a functional language like Haskell is very cool and can in certain situations offer massive optimizations due to it's language and runtime design, it presents you with a non-existing world. C is an "easy" way to understand low-level for as far as it's useful. I fooled around with a lot of languages, including Haskell - and knowing C gives you a much better insight in what the runtime is actually doing, because you KNOW a CPU doesn't work like that, and you're able to quickly understand it's limitations and advantages. Another way to understand what happens +- on CPU level is implementing a simple bytecode compiler and interpreter - in any language of your choosing, but for some reason, most "real world" interpreters are implemented in C/C++.