I'm learning C because it's widely used (from PCs to microcontrollers), all the programmers I respect started with C, and I still hold a grudge for flopping at learning it when I was younger. I think if I can gain a competency at this then I can do anything - particularly anything that I've failed at before, like mathematics higher than algebra and learning a foreign language.
C has its place, but I'm realizing I should eventually learn about (to some degree) more commonly used languages such as Java and web-oriented languages like Ruby. Most of the general programming stuff I see is about things I'm not even familiar with on a superficial level. Words like JSON, stuff on "rails", Canvas (or other aspects of HTML 5), CURL, etc. Not to mention databases, woof.
I have a book on Perl I never really dug into. Same with Python, but I think I got rid of that book. I used to have a PHP book (and actually did some PHP stuff I was proud of now that I think about it) but lost it.
There is a crapload of stuff to learn and I'm hoping that competency in C will give me the confidence to tackle any arbitrary platform or language.
My personal metrics for saying "I know C" I'm keeping somewhat secret for now. When I get close to that goal I'll pick up a book or some other resource on basic database usage. Most everything is stored in a SQL (or similar type) database and I figure I should have at least some knowledge of how to do this. I used mySQL a bit with the PHP app I wrote for the lab I used to work for, but it was a lot of copy/paste from the internet without really understanding what was going on.
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