为什么C语言这么快，为什么其他语言不能快或快?

In listening to the StackOverflow podcast, the jab keeps coming up that "real programmers" write in C, and that C is so much faster because it's "close to the machine." Leaving the former assertion for another post, what is special about C that allows it to be faster than other languages? Or put another way: what's to stop other languages from being able to compile down to binary that runs every bit as fast as C?In listening to the StackOverflow podcast, the