Is "C" really needed?

[z3r0aCc3Ss]

I have this question in my mind from past 3-4 years. I never understood C and still not understanding. C is revolving around me from past 7 years, still, I don't know how to write a simple program in C.
3 years back, I got into JAVA, VB and C# and I picked-up those languages very rapidly.
Even after not being in touch with those languages for almost a year, I can easily recall them.
Many people say that to learn and understand the basics of programming, you have start with C, but that is not true at all. You can start with any language you want. I started with VB and C# and I learned programming concepts WITHOUT even doing C.

So, my question is, is C really required now a days? Where it is used?
I have a paper of 125 marks on C. I can understand C, but can't recollect those shit syntax and casing, etc...

[leetnigga]

Many people say that to learn and understand the basics of programming, you have start with C, but that is not true at all. You can start with any language you want. I started with VB and C# and I learned programming concepts WITHOUT even doing C.

Getting the concepts of programming and learning to write algorithms can indeed be easily done in a higher level language. In fact I am somewhat partial to starting out this way. You can write a lot of programs and make a lot of money without even having heard of C.

You can understand how to write programs by learning the rules for them (that's what you have done), and you can understand programming by knowing more accurately what the computer does. Learning C will enlighten you on the latter.

It's obviously not essential to writing programs, but I've found that a lower level understanding allows you to write better programs.
Understanding C also helps you understand how programs written in C can fail. Buffer overflows, memory leaks, et cetera.

So, my question is, is C really required now a days? Where it is used?

For being a really good programmer, I would say it's a requirement.

C is used in situations where speed is important. For example, your operating system is probably not written in Visual Basic.
Games and browsers are written in C or C++, for the same speed requirement.
C is also used in the world of embedded programming. Those little microcontrollers you see in appliances are often programmed using C.
The Linux and *BSD kernels are written in C.
The last but certainly not least example I can think of is other programming languages. The Python interpreter is written in C. The bytecode interpreter that runs your C# or VB.net programs is written in C++.
(C++ is not C, but you can ask the same question for C++. Your question was really about low level programming languages)

[Legend_Xeon]

Nicely explained leetnigga.
I would like to add up that i once downloaded some fragment codes of windows 2000 and saw that they were mostly written in C.

[CommonStray]

Consider this:

C++ was at one time, an extension of C (obviously)

A lot of dynamic imperitive languages use a syntax which is based of the C/C++ pattern. Java is one such language. PHP, Perl, and CPython are written in C.

This is kind of where the concept that 'when you learn one, you gain a certain understanding for all' comes from however, I dont think that is generally the case because in order to understand how any programming language works you simply have to understand what containers, logic, and controls are.

A calculator that can run a c compiler is no longer a calculator, but rather, a computer.

[leetnigga]

A calculator that can run a c compiler is no longer a calculator, but rather, a computer.

A calculator is a computer by definition. What you're describing is more like being self-hosting.