I used to think that was true. Then I had a crypto course in uni which required us to write and optimize 3 different hashing and encryption algorithms. I was s

I used to think that was true. Then I had a crypto course in uni which required us to write and optimize 3 different hashing and encryption algorithms. I was stunned by the first once, which I first did in C and then moved to ASM. The C code was pretty straightforward. But it was trivial to beat in ASM by something like 120%. That course taught me how bad compilers(Or rather GCC) are at high-level register optimization and using the barrel shifter. Basically all the performance I squeezed out of ASM was because the compiler just wasn't figuring basic stuff out. Mind you I was(am) not an ASM expert. That piece of code was the first thing I ever write in ASM. And yet I was able to easily beat a decades old world class compiler.