But almost all software today is written in a high level language (above C). And even in C, optimizations can change your code quite a lot. So I do think havi

But almost all software today is written in a high level language (above C). And even in C, optimizations can change your code quite a lot. So I do think having a basic udnerstanding of how compilers work under the hood should be required for every programmer. As I said elswhere, every proper programmer should write at least one toy language with a compiler and / or interpreter.