This is an excellent essay, and touches on a lot of the key ideas both of what C is and of how C maps to the hardware. In particular, I completely agree with wh

This is an excellent essay, and touches on a lot of the key ideas both of what C is and of how C maps to the hardware. In particular, I completely agree with where Steve lands here, which is that C can give you more understanding of how computers work but won't necessarily reveal some "deep ultimate truth" about the zen of computers. Especially in light of this essay recently shared on HN (https://blog.erratasec.com/2015/03/x86-is-high-level-language.html https://blog.erratasec.com/2015/03/x86-is-high-level-languag...), which makes the excellent point that even a language that is compiling down to raw x86 assembly is still operating in a "virtual machine" relative to what goes on in the actual chip and the flow of electrons through the silicon-metal substrate. It's abstractions all the way down.