You're essentially advocating for a bottoms up approach as opposed to a top down approach (albeit in a pretty confusing manner). Both work for different people

You're essentially advocating for a bottoms up approach as opposed to a top down approach (albeit in a pretty confusing manner). Both work for different people and circumstances. Personally, I think C is a bit high level for a true bottoms up approach which is more inline with a computer engineering education as opposed to a CS program from a liberal arts college. A good approach is one I experienced while attending a tier 1 eng school over a decade ago: using ASM of a simple simulated cpu with a small instruction set(risc or cisc doesn't really matter although imo risc is by far easier to pick up for less experienced individuals).