if a 3 rd world country can outlaw them then we can tooey don ' t speak of Canberra that way . <| sep |> C is far from a dead language . It is still quite popular especially in embedded systems and high performance programs like games . Since you ' re new to software you ' re in a difficult spot programming has very little to do with a specific language as it is a skill of solving problems . However , you need to know at least one programming language to develop this skill . As a result starting out is difficult because you are trying to learn two very different things at once . I suggest sticking with C so that you don ' t need to spend additional time learning a different language before you can progress further into the more important skill of programming . Later you will almost certainly learn more languages but there is no need to worry about them now .