"C has retained its popularity because the answer to the question what is the lowest level language I can code in without using assembly has always been C" Wha

"C has retained its popularity because the answer to the question what is the lowest level language I can code in without using assembly has always been C" What a way to miss the point! There are plenty of languages between assembly and C. C wins because it's about as high-level as you can get before you start incurring run-time penalties.