I think C (and later C++) made things unwieldy harder.
Sure, you needed a higher-level ASM and C filled that space, but there was a void between that and the (very) high level languages like BASIC, bash/awk etc that took some time to be adequately filled (and maybe even today isn't)
The in-between is Forth. BASIC (and Python) are 50 times slower than assembly or C. Forth is 5 to 10 times faster than assembly or C and 5 to 10 times slower than BASIC or Python.
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I think C (and later C++) made things unwieldy harder.
Sure, you needed a higher-level ASM and C filled that space, but there was a void between that and the (very) high level languages like BASIC, bash/awk etc that took some time to be adequately filled (and maybe even today isn't)
The in-between is Forth. BASIC (and Python) are 50 times slower than assembly or C. Forth is 5 to 10 times faster than assembly or C and 5 to 10 times slower than BASIC or Python.