You, and it seems most others here are suggesting that you learn C by doing some systems programming; I was thinking of dabbling in C, but maybe starting out by doing something with AVR/arduino or something like that.... Is the C your write for embedded stuff fundamentally different from the C you write for linux? I would eventually like to know how to write a php module or something like that, is starting by hacking on linux or some other os a better start?
I think the real value of C is how it deals with lower-level stuff- embedded systems, drivers, kernels, etc. Writing something like a PHP module would make more sense in another language (and then wrapping it in C if you need to).
