C Programming in Linux. David Haskins

So where do we start? A sensible place is “at the beginning” and C is as close as most of us will ever need to go unless we are becoming hardware designers. Even for these students to start at C and go further down into the machine is a good idea.C is like having a very sharp knife which can be dangerous, but if you were learning to be a chef you would need one and probably cut yourself discovering what it can do. Similarly C expects you to know what you are doing, and if you don't it will not warn before it crashes.A knowledge of C will give you deep knowledge of what is going on beneath the surface of higher-level languages like Java. The syntax of C pretty-well guarantees you will easily understand other languages that came afterwards like C++, Java, Javascript, and C#.C gives you access to the heart of the machine and all its resources at a fine-grained bit-level.