On Sat, Apr 30, 2016 at 7:39 AM, Diane Bruce <d...@db.net> wrote: > Now on that we furiously agree. One problem has been getting that through > to people who insist that C is still a high level assembler and has > not changed from the time when it was a hand crafted recursive descent > LR to the modern compiler with all the lovely optimisations we can do.
Sure, the compilers are way better than they were back then. That doesn't make the language itself any higher level. The semantic level of the language and the level of abstraction it provides have barely changed, so the language itself is still a mostly portable substitute for assembly language. As Chuck points out, it isn't a good substitute for any particular CISC assembly language, but then those aren't portable at all.
