It’s not only that, but also the semantics of the language. Is, for example, integer comparison guaranteed to be constant time? What about integer comparison wi

It’s not only that, but also the semantics of the language. Is, for example, integer comparison guaranteed to be constant time? What about integer comparison with constants that require multiple load instructions (like on MIPS where all instructions are word sized so loading words requires two instructions). Is it “wrong” to do two comparisons against the high half and the low half independently, each branching on failure, if the language provides no guarantees and the outcome is the same? Ultimately security focused languages that provide operational guarantees with C linkage are probably necessary. I don’t think it’s enough to not optimize C.