In regards to the first question, no, starting with C is not a good idea. The libraries are laughably bad, you need to do things that are just horrifically primitive by modern language standards ( manaully null terminating strings? ). Frankly too, C is more or less obsolete, outside of embedded systems and a few other niche markets.

First off, the majority of C++ houses these days don't even roll their own engines anymore, it's just a piss poor use of time.

I am quite sure you will agree that learning C++ is easier if you already know C.

In my experience a lot of people who come to C++ from a C background tend to see it as "C++ = C + classes" and are rather horrible C++ programmers with a lot of baggage they need to get rid off before they can improve (if they have the self-reflection ability necessary to make that journey).

[quote name='BitMaster' timestamp='1310479633' post='4834299']
I do not agree. As soon as you are under the impression that C++ is just C with a few extra bits glued on you are on a very bad path.

Yes, if you know C you'll find it easier to start learning C++. However, if you don't know C, I wouldn't recommend starting there to learn C++.

The "hard parts" that are really at the core of both languages (mostly the pervasive assumption that the programmer is correct) are hard regardless of the route taken. There is also the idiomatic differences between the languages, one would spend lots of time having to unlearn C idioms to really allow modern C++ idioms to be useful.