I think Joel's point is that for the following two statements: 1) You can do multithreaded programs in C 2) You cannot do multithreaded programs in C the com

I think Joel's point is that for the following two statements: 1) You can do multithreaded programs in C 2) You cannot do multithreaded programs in C the common belief is 1, and it leads to much suffering. If everyone believed what Joel is saying, 2, most everyone would be much happier. He's trying to reset the center point of the thread folklore. And I praise him. Doing concurrent systems in C should sound as absurd as building web apps in assembly - there's probably a case for it, but its almost certainly not the one you're looking at.