Comment by matheusmoreira

The compiler's job is to program the turing machine for us. It should help as much as possible. For example, I really like using enums because compilers have extensive support for checking that all values have been handled in switch statements.

I don't like it when compilers start getting in the way though. We use C because we want to do raw things like point a structure at some memory area in order to access the data stored there. The compiler's job is to generate the expected code without screwing it up by "optimizing" it beyond recognition because of strict aliasing or some other nonsense.