[bane]

The most important difference between a higher level language and C is that you really have to understand a bit about the underlying hardware architecture to do it "right". C is a fairly thin veneer over assembly and it helps to have that mental model in mind when working in it.

It's a very small language with almost no batteries included, built very much around the manipulation of pointers and memory more than just about anything else.

To do C the "right" way means approaching problems from that perspective and building mountains out of toothpicks while thinking about how the billions of toothpicks need to interact with one another so they don't crash/catch fire/etc.