I did forget to mention a couple of details about C.

1) It is easy to write a program that can deal with the guts of your
computer/ipod/pda/whatnot with precision and speed.

2) It is easy to write a program with unintentional hidden bugs that are
horrible to try and find.

I think #2 follows from #1, but can be avoided if safe programming
habits are followed. In other words, C makes it easy to "shoot yourself
in the foot", so the simple-minded advice people are given is "Don't do
that.".

Here's a link to an article about writing secure C programs:
http://developers.sun.com/solaris/articles/secure.html
When I read it long ago, I said "Oh, I don't have to worry about that,
I'm not writing security-critical programs.". But it turns out that a
security hole is just a bug that happens to be in a security-critical
program. And so the article is really talking about avoiding bugs,
period.

If you use these techniques from day one, people will look at your code
and say "there's someone who writes good code", and you'll get a good
reputation, money, and chicks (or guys, if you're so inclined).

If not, people will look at your code and say "what ugly code, I'm going
to have to rewrite this.", and you won't be getting the good-reputation
perks outlined above... :-)

-- 
PF <kernel@pkts.ca>