I'm a student, fresh into programming and loving it, from Java to C++ and down to C. I moved backwards to the barebones and thought to go further down to Assembly. But, to my surprise, a lot of people said it's not as fast as C and there is no use. They suggested learning either how to program a kernel or writing a C compiler. My dream is to learn to program in binary (machine code) or maybe program bare metal (program micro-controller physically) or write bios or boot loaders or something of that nature. The only possible thing I heard after so much research is that a hex editor is the closest thing to machine language I could find in this age and era. Are there other things I'm unaware of? Are there any resources to learn to program in machine code? Preferably on a 8-bit micro-controller/microprocessor. This question is similar to mine, but I'm interested in practical learning first and then understanding the theory.