While I think the poster really messed this up, big-time, I can empathize with him or her to a degree. I prefer high-level languages to low, and I also tend to

While I think the poster really messed this up, big-time, I can empathize with him or her to a degree. I prefer high-level languages to low, and I also tend to avoid conflict. One way to salvage this situation without getting fired might be to come clean now, be contrite, stop using incendiary words like "inadequate" and demonstrate the new solution as something that just got out of hand. It's hard to hire programmers right now, and the manager would have to weigh the (legitimate) desire to fire someone on the spot with the fact that getting a replacement would be expensive and annoying. One could even say "now that I understand the problem better, I have a better handle on implementing it in ANSI C, as requested".