DTrace and eBPF are "not so different" in the sense that dtrace programs / hooks are also a form of low-level code / instruction set that the kernel (dtrace driver) validates at load. It's an "internal" artifact of dtrace though, https://github.com/illumos/illumos-gate/blob/master/usr/src/... and to my knowledge, nothing like a clang/gcc "dtrace target" exists to translate more-or-less arbitrary higher-level language "to low-level dtrace".

The additional flexibility eBPF gets from this is amazing really. While dtrace is a more-targeted (and for its intended usecases, in some situations still superior to eBPF) but also less-general tool.

(citrus vs. stone fruit ...)