C is, today, a unique programming language. Surprisingly few people can really program in C and yet many of us have quite strong opinions about it. Buffer overflows, stack smashing, integer overflows — C has many well publicised flaws, and these terms are often bandied about confidently, even by those unfamiliar with C. Personally I shied away from C for a decade, for one reason or another: originally, compilers were expensive (this being the days before free UNIX clones were readily available) ...