[aaronrc]

Last place I worked had a guy who viewed C as the enemy and would not code in anything put Fortran - it was a production system running a totaliser.

However it's a silly assertion. Unless you need someone to program micro-controllers, devise codecs, do low level memory management etc. etc. understanding C is hardly going to be a mandatory requirement. If you're running a software company building web apps I'd much rather have someone that understands user interfaces and codes in a productive language - C expertise is superfluous.

I have worked professionally with C myself and studied it at uni. However you won't see me volunteering for C work. It's painful to go back to C after C#, Ruby etc.