The OP did not ask to be taught C! In fact I assumed they did not know it and I told him to get a book first yet you ignored that and went to the youtube post. On top of that a lot of high end universities post their lectures on YOUTUBE (Stanford being one of them)! Then you go on to say that some books are rubbish! What was the point of me reading that. The OP will eventually need a compiler. What do you expect them to learn on? I guess you imply that they should get GCC or an additional program just so they can learn on a PC? Maybe they should pay for some high end software to learn on the PC. What I don't get is that you say 8051 complicates the issue of learning C, but you say that using Keil is great to practice on. So, which one is it? Get a PC C compiler and work an intermediary step to learn C and then go on to embedded or get right to it? You glorify embedded firmware engineers too much by belittling computer software engineers by implying that their job is much easier!