[AnimalMuppet]

> as mandated by the C programming model.

As PhilipRoman said, this is also true of assembly (or any other programming language model[1]).

> If you're still tempted to consider C "close to hardware", consider that you can compile the same code for a Z80 and a Threadripper. What hardware exactly are you controlling that's common to both?

In both of them I can write to a memory-mapped I/O device, if it has one. I can write a custom memory allocator for a pool that I'm managing myself. I can't do either of those in Fortran or Javascript.

[1] Why does it have to be true of any other programming language model? Well, maybe I exaggerate slightly. But can you show me a (single threaded) programming language where "a = 1" does not mean that on the next line, a will be 1?

[kmstout]

> But can you show me a (single threaded) programming language where "a = 1" does not mean that on the next line, a will be 1?

MIPS I.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delay_slot#Load_delay_slot

[gpderetta]

>But can you show me a (single threaded) programming language where "a = 1" does not mean that on the next line, a will be 1

Generally agree with your point, but just to play the devil's advocate, in a CPU with exposed pipeline and no interlocks, setting a register to a value doesn't guarantee that a following instruction reading from that register will see the last value written.