> IMHO you're not an experienced programmer.
What prompted you to write this? I'm not insulted. I am curious why you would leap to that conclusion. Is it based on how I worded my question? Or the fact I haven't "learned" or used c? Do you think I don't understand or haven't used pointers? Or memory management issues?
This is true of most languages, and probably most true of Lisps and MLs. If you've never learned a Lisp, I also would consider you "not an experienced programmer". Not "an inexperienced programmer", and you may be "an experienced <ruby/python/garfunkel> programmer", but I think you are "not an experienced programmer". You should also use Perl at some point, for example. By the way, it's awesome that you want to learn more, that's a very good sign. (Again, this is all very heavy IMHO ;-)
In C's case, some of the things you learn are pointers, memory management, portability, simplicity, filesystems, build systems, etc. These are usually things that are handled by other languages, or that other languages discourage you from thinking about. Other languages will have made choices for you about how to hide these details, and it's often useful to have made your own choices about such problems at least a few times in the past. Otherwise you may end up blinded by the choices made by others.
That's a strange thing to say considering that, as a C programmer, you're much more concerned with implementation issues rather than expressing high level ideas. In general, when I'm given a problem, I care about the organization of my data. I'm not concerned with memory management.
If you want to play with straw men, go elsewhere. All you're doing here is wasting everyone's time, including your own.
I'm not sure why you're getting defensive.
And I guess "organization of my data" was a bad example.
Maybe I can be more helpful:
Being a programmer is like being a novelist. You need to be able to construct a plot, but you also need a powerful vocabulary. I'm saying C helps develop your computer vocabulary, and you're saying the programming analog of "but it doesn't tell you how to invent interesting characters!" Totally different parts of a useful experience.