Yes indeed, and many don't realize that C streams are also buffered and can also be tuned:

http://www.gnu.org/software/libc/manual/html_node/Buffering-...

http://www.gnu.org/software/libc/manual/html_node/Controllin...

there are also threading issues:

http://www.gnu.org/software/libc/manual/html_node/Streams-an...

glibc even lets you implement custom streams (FILE* handles that will work with fgets etc. but call your own source and sink to do i/o)