This is a great article (worth reading if interested in performance/parallel computing) but the complications it gets into are mostly in the CPU architecture/ha

This is a great article (worth reading if interested in performance/parallel computing) but the complications it gets into are mostly in the CPU architecture/hardware to which compilers add additional complexity. Even without the compiler optimizations there's still branch prediction and associated parallel execution of serial machine code. To anyone debating whether C is low/not-low level language note that this discussion is at a much lower level so 'low' has a lower than common meaning.