re: #10 Charles Johnson

What a lot of programmers forget is that when you program in C you’re actually rooting around in the RAM of the computer. That’s why it’s called a “low-level” language — you have access to the bare metal. With great power comes great responsibility, and it’s more important than ever these days to be very aware of security in all code that runs on the web.

This is why I’m a fan of low-level languages being taught early in Computer Science curriculums. Many of them have jumped ship to the managed languages - Java, C#/vb.net, etc. And in my mind, it is much easier to go from an unmanaged programming language to a managed one, than the other way ‘round. You learn early and often how pointer and array errors can cause serious and unexpected side effects. Yes, C/C++ is not as friendly to learn for a beginner than Java, but let’s face it - if you’re in a computer science program, you should not be caring about how friendly your first programming language is. You are going to be exposed to all manner of vile contraptions in your career, you might as well grow some balls and learn to embrace the suck.