1- if you are short on time and have no need practical need for C, then learn some simplified assembler (eg. MIIX, or a subset of a real processor). Write one

1- if you are short on time and have no need practical need for C, then learn some simplified assembler (eg. MIIX, or a subset of a real processor). Write one real little program in assembler. 2- if you have time, learn the assembler of a real processor (my favorite is 680x0 but nowadays that would rather be x86-64 or ARM), and write an application in assembler. 3- if you are short on time or have a practical need for it, like a C job, or you want to maintain some C software (eg. the Linux kernel, Xorg X11 server or something like that), then go ahead learning C. Otherwise, learning assembler (and never again writing another assembler program) would be a better learning experience thant learning C. I've known numerous programmers having learned C who were still confused, but never an assembler programmer being still confused.