I'd recommend learning assembly language using a macro assembler. Getting up close and personal with actual hardware without a particular programming model bei

I'd recommend learning assembly language using a macro assembler. Getting up close and personal with actual hardware without a particular programming model being interposed will give you an appreciation for the conceptual and practical support programming languages provide. Writing programs that run on bare metal and programs that run with operating system support is an educational experience of the first order. Just writing a program that bootstraps itself is a right of passage.