I still think it's why some of the world's most complex software such as our operating systems, proxies, load balancers and web servers such as HAProxy and ngin

I still think it's why some of the world's most complex software such as our operating systems, proxies, load balancers and web servers such as HAProxy and nginx are written in C -- raw speed aside. C itself is also a minimal language. I am not sure if it is a design school, but rather I think when you afford the ability to truly have mastery over your tool, then the humans using them can take them and create something you could have never envisioned yourself. The popular approach seems to be these days to give them every single tool (and toolbelt), and they get lost in the chaos. (e.g "Is C++'s problem really that it needs more features?") I spent my first part of my career as a developer writing Java. I still don't feel like I know half of the language. Maybe this is because I have a feeble mind and can't grok these higher level concepts, or maybe it's because I didn't have time to learn 5 different programming paradigms under the same roof when I had work to do, I don't know the real answer. However, I have spent just under 2 writing full time Go and I feel like I have mastery over the entire language (I credit this to it's very digestible language specification). It's the simplicity that makes it so beautiful and able to create the powerful tools. To draw a parallel in literature (a quip I read in a book recently), consider Shakespeare who wrote his masterpieces in blank verse. There were many other advanced forms of poetry, prose, and literary forms developed by then, but he chose this. Blank verse is not inherently complex, in fact it was used because of it's simplicity and ease of remembrance. Yet it was because of this simplicity and minimal structure that he was able to create some of the most beautiful artistic expressions of the english language.