[MaxBarraclough]

I broadly agree. More so than any other other language, you cannot produce a good C (or C++) programmer by try-it-and-see alone. It's vital to have a grasp of the way the language is defined.

Point of disagreement: no amount of C expertise makes a hand-written C codebase safe. Vulnerabilities and undefined behaviour are often found even in code written by top-flight C programmers.