Re: Probably rewriting it they rewrote it right...
There was a time when MS was the worst - IIRC late 80s or early 90s, and surpassed by Borland, Intel, Watcom - the latter highly regarded.
MS understood the risks of losing control, and worked hard to turn the table. Meanwhile Borland went down the sink (many mistakes on their own, and no little help from MS) and its compilers suffered a lot.
Watcom was a small company, and was bought by others.
Hand-optimized assembler is far harder these days, it does require a fairly advanced knowledge of how a given CPU works, to choose and put instructions together.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
