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It is trendy to hate C now, but if you want to understand a Unix-like OS I think it is mandatory and they go hand in hand. Otherwise, you will have no idea what kind of interface your higher level language is abstracting.

It's ok to not like it, but don't let that dislike be due to lack of understanding.



Sure, drop into C sometimes. But telling beginners to start there is mean.

I spent a lot of time in assembler too, and yes it has benefits for learning. Im also not recommending a high level toy like Logo.


I don't know if I understand that. Everyone was also a beginner at some point. I was a beginner at both C and Unix when I learned them together. I wrote a lot of bad C code before I got good at it.

I also say hand-in-hand as a bidirectional thing. I wouldn't suggest learning C without learning about Unix too. And I say that as someone who has worked extensively outside of Unix-like platforms.


Indeed. All the foundational common ground between all languages in Unix is made for C. I'm talking about the system call interface. All general purpose languages will have a wrapper for this interface, but the main documentation is made for C.

Besides that, libraries tend to be made in C as well. That's because if it's in C, it's easy to make it available for other languages. Most general purpose languages will have some type of "foreign function interface" to call on C code. That means that the main documentation for these libraries will be for C as well.




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