What is an example in which knowing C will make me write better code in any other language?

Question

In the Stack Overflow podcasts, Joel Spolsky constantly harps on Jeff Atwood about Jeff not knowing how to write code in C. His statement is that \"knowing C helps you write bet

Answer 1

To give you a specific reason: having to write my own Garbage Collection routines has helped my write better code.

I don't think I have ever found a problem that I haven't been able to solve with a higher-level language; but started by learning C, it has instilled in me quite a number of excellent development practices. Knowing how the rudimentary parts of the flow of an application work will enable to you be able to look at your own code and get a good visual of how the data flows, and where it is stored. This then leads to a better understand of how to track down leaking memory, slow disk reads, poorly constructed caches, etc.

Keeping track of Pointers... that's another one that comes to mind.