I definitely agree with this. I had "learned C" but not really (programmed small things in it). Then about a year later I ended up taking a course that involved

I definitely agree with this. I had "learned C" but not really (programmed small things in it). Then about a year later I ended up taking a course that involved a lot of reverse engineering and analysis of ELFs. Later on I went back to C since I knew I had never really done a lot with it and everything was a breeze. I understood what was going on, loved it, and on top of that was able to easily knock out loads of exploitation stack-smashing puzzles I found on the internet. I already knew how to program pretty well but didn't really know system programming and C. I can imagine the value of, instead of writing hello world, learning assembly first and writing programs that end with some exit status instead. It would probably be way more boring, but way more informative in the long run.