I'm not sure the analogy holds. C is a very specific programming language you can characterise as a byte-array manipulation language. That's a very specific bui

I'm not sure the analogy holds. C is a very specific programming language you can characterise as a byte-array manipulation language. That's a very specific building block for making software if that building block is what you need, hence its merit. Java "on the very surface level" has absolutely nothing that relates to C, modulo some syntax if you think that has a lot of weight.