If you ask me, the best place for embedded ( or in fact, even systems) programmers, is ASSEMBLY

Won't help doing the higher generation languages if you don't know what goes on underneath...

besides, asm gives the most control, flexibility, power, speed and compact code. And with enough practice, development time will be equivalent to that of C ....

Only problem is, different families have different mnemonics and instruction set, whereas C is universal. Java can come in later when and if the need arises (as discussed above)

kundi