Hi all,
So much said and noted, I may say this-
C is the first most fundamental structured and 'complete' high level language. Ofcourse C++, JAVA, C# differ in style where as all of them have derived their structure more or less from C.
Coming to application part- C is still a particularly popular choice and might continue to be so for Embedded, DSP, Instrumentation, computer controlled automation and similar fields/domains.
Whereas an integrated platform like Visual Studio or VS.NET offers much more powerful and structured features which are otherwise very difficult (rather very very difficult..!!!) to implement. For ex implementing a 'class' is easier here. These features are more handy if we are talking about domains like software development and related ones.
Hope my effort summarises the discussion.
Sai