[MikePlacid]

There was a Mini C (C subset) compiler written in Mini C and running on a Russian version of z80 in the beginning of 80’s. It was small and very observable (I’ve changed the code generator there to produce code for IBM/370 - and so we’ve bootstrapped this compiler to a Russian IBM/370 to run some games written in Mini C))

Not sure if such a thing is much better than assembly language in industrial context: it would speed coding up, but you would need to check the results thoroughly. Only the real test can tell if there is a time / quality benefit in sum.