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C yes, C++ definitely not. C will help because it will introduce people to how things are actually stored in memory and because quite a few high level tools are implemented in C. C++ will just confuse the learner with excessive syntax.

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I generally agree, C comes in really useful in a lot of places. It's certainly the best nuts-and-bolts language.

Although at the same time, I find that C++ can be quite useful if you are disciplined in what parts of it you use.

I think it's great that you get some decent data structures (Standard Template Library) out of the box.

yes. i've come to the conclusion not that learning c is helpful but that writing malloc is helpful. i'm eternally grateful that was assigned as a project my sophomore year.

Could you provide details on what the project requirements were? I'm interested in doing a similar exercise.

_Tons_ of computer systems courses are taught out of the same book from CMU: _Computer Systems: A Programmer's Perspective_.

You can search for "malloc lab" and find tons of copies of the assignment (with only the instructor names and course numbers changed), but here's one:

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/academic/class/15213-f02/L6/mal...

mine was http://www.owlnet.rice.edu/~comp320/2007/assignments/malloc/.... or something similar a handful of years prior.

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