[coldtea]

>Even now performance-critical code is assembly.

The problem I have with this statement is that it implies other code, like the kernel, a ray-tracer, video editor, number crunching etc, stuff usually done in C/C++, are not "performance critical".

Let's call what you describe "extremely performance critical" if you wish.

With that said, MOST performance critical code is written in C/C++.

Code that's not that much performance critical is written in whatever.