Most of the stuff went over my head, Why should I care that C is no longer low-level? What exactly is considered close-to-metal in today’s time, apart from binary and assembly?
Most of the stuff went over my head, Why should I care that C is no longer low-level? What exactly is considered close-to-metal in today’s time, apart from binary and assembly?
I think for these types of discussions it’s really necessary to clearly define what “low level” really means, something both you and the author kinda skip over. I think a reasonable definition is about the amount of layers of abstraction between the language’s model of the machine and the actual hardware.
The author is correct that nowadays, on lots of hardware, there are considerably more abstractions in place and the C abstract machine does not accurately represent high performance modern consumer processors. So the language is not as low level as it was before. At the same time, many languages exist that are still way higher level than C is.
I’d say C is still in the same place on the abstraction ladder it’s always been, but the floor is deeper nowadays (and the top probably higher as well).
But it’s the hardware that has changed not C. As I said, with his argument Assembly isn’t a low level programming language either.
Besides, early risc cpus from the 80’s had out of order write back so this isn’t new. By the 90’s all risc were ooe. The first was the ibm 360 from the 1960’s.
I agree!
Indeed, I could have worded that a bit better. But I think we agree on the fundamental points.