While I agree that knowing C is relevant, from culture point of view, to be able to use libraries written in C, and specially to be aware of its flaws and when to use something better instead.
Writing low level networking code does not require C per se, I have done it in several other languages, and given that the causes for the Morris worm remain in the language, ideally one should use something else.
> Writing low level networking code does not require C per se,
Of course it doesn’t. I mentioned using Python to write low-level networking code above (it was painful for someone used to C). I’ve also used Lua for it (better than Python).
And as I recall, you’re a fan of Ada and Rust, both of which I have used to write low-level networking code (packet parsers, network protocols, and whatnot).
That said, those languages are not typically a well-traveled entry-point into low-level network coding. C is. I’d be as happy as the next guy on HN if we all just moved to Rust, but that’s not in the cards at the moment.
Writing low level networking code does not require C per se, I have done it in several other languages, and given that the causes for the Morris worm remain in the language, ideally one should use something else.