"Kernighan's and Ritchie's seminal work came in the 1970s, when Kernighan said the computer field still presented "low-hanging fruit." Partly because they and their cohorts did so well, we don't have much more to do in the basic computer development that underlies the ever-changing cornucopia of protocols and applications that are the current focus of programmers. New algorithms will continue to develop, particularly thanks to the growth of multiprocessing and especially heterogeneous processors. New operating system constructs will be needed in those environments too. But most of the field has moved away from basic computer science toward various applications that deal directly with real-world activities."
That last line prevents me from tarrying with C as much as I think I should, in the real world. I've ready my K&R, done a number of its exercises, read some other books by the same publisher, but I keep coming to Perl for all my real world work. I guess I work at too high of a level for C to really come into my sphere.