[avl999]

Learning C however is completely orthogonal to learning and building challenging projects (in this specific instance a distributed datastore) that the OP is talking about. It is not going to make you understand the domain better or provide any other tangible benefits. If anything it is going to add negative value by distracting you from $TheChallengingConceptYouWantedToLearnInTheFirstPlace

If I am working on a challenging project recreationally to stretch the limits of my comfort level- say a compiler or a distributed system, the last thing I want is the cognitive overload of trying to deal with C unless I am a C expert already. When working on such projects you should be focused on grokking the problem being solved as opposed to worrying about language idiosyncrasies.

If you want to learn C, it should be done in an environment where it is decoupled from trying to learn another extremely challenging idea. So I definitely would not recommend someone interested in learning about distributed systems attempt to build one in C. If you are trying to learn C you probably build something that you are quite familiar with so that your focus is on learning the language and its concepts as opposed to trying to implement/understand the ideas behind Paxos while also trying to learn safe memory management and pointer tricks.

[0xbadcafebee]

I agree that the complexities of C will add to the challenge and workload and make the project take much longer. But certain aspects of C can raise interesting questions that you might not face otherwise. Some of those things will be about algorithm design, some about language design, some about computing in general. Especially if you spend most of your time in high-level languages, it can really help to have this new perspective. Some of it makes you question modern software development.

Also, I learned a lot more about C (and computing in general) by working on complicated projects rather than simple ones. I had built all sorts of simple C projects, but one complicated one taught me twice as much as I'd previously learned. It took me a long time, but it was all valuable because I got to learn what designs didn't work for C and which did.

Anyway, it's up to the reader to decide how much of their time to invest and what they want to get out of it. If you don't want to write it in C, don't, but I personally think the incidental lessons are some of the most valuable.

[iainmerrick]

Agreed -- writing toy programs generally doesn't teach you a whole lot about a new programming language. To learn it in a deep way you need to use it properly, on real problems.

Although, if you're mainly interested in getting something done rather than using it as a learning experience, using an unfamiliar language is probably a bad idea. You'll learn a lot about a new language, but you probably won't build anything you could actually ship.