Some Were Meant for C: The Endurance of an Unmanageable Language [pdf]

"unmanageable"?

Probably not. C was devised back when there were very few high-level languages, when most people were obliged to use assembly-language or machine-language. And in those days of slow hardware, assembly-language was the most efficient way to work.

Most of us who are comfortable using C find it a universal-machine assembly language which is fast and efficient and which is an alternative to using a high-level language which is easy to write but is 'slowish though fast-enough' in use.

That which is good endures. That which is not is soon thrown away. Many 'best thing since sliced bread' programming languages have come and gone in the decades that C has endured in the background.