Early compilers really did suck. They were long term big wins for sure, but it wasn't unreasonable for someone who was really good at hand assembly, on tightly

Early compilers really did suck. They were long term big wins for sure, but it wasn't unreasonable for someone who was really good at hand assembly, on tightly constrained systems, to think they could beat the compiler at metrics that mattered. Compilers did get better, and continue to--just look at my username. But in the early days one could make very strong, very reasonable, cases for sticking with assembly.