It's worth popping the hood and getting your fingers dirty. C was written in an era where memory was a scarce and precious resource to be grudgingly used if absolutely necessary
Please note that C is quite a few years older than the first GC languages. LISP1.5, ALGOL-68 and APL all had garbage collectors before C even existed.
Not to say that it's not worth it to learn manual memory management as well, but it is important not to think that GCs are a fancy modern tool, and that greybeards would never touch one. There were greybeards using punch cards and programming in a GC language, with output printed out on paper.
Not to say that it's not worth it to learn manual memory management as well, but it is important not to think that GCs are a fancy modern tool, and that greybeards would never touch one. There were greybeards using punch cards and programming in a GC language, with output printed out on paper.