I don't know exactly what the author is referring to, but I know that C is unique in that it will never go away. So long as new hardware primitives come into play, we will always need to return to the level of C to squeeze out performance. This will only become more and more true as the ascendancy of multicores continues. A buddy and I were thinking about it just the other day: could you even imagine a closer wrapper for assembly with comparable ratios of effort to level of control?