[OT] C vs C++

[Paulo Pinto]

On Tuesday, 30 August 2022 at 20:17:51 UTC, rikki cattermole 
wrote:
>
> On 31/08/2022 8:02 AM, JN wrote:
>> However, C is showing it's age.
>
> Nah, C was never state of the art.
>
> C was a bad language in the 1970's and its still a bad language 
> today.
>
> It did not succeed due to its feature set, but its syntax.
>
> Other languages like ML existed within a few years of C which 
> have significantly more powerful features (as in, D still can't 
> match it for some things)!

It succeed, because of UNIX, just like JavaScript on the browser, 
if the OS already offers a free compiler, which uses it for 
everything it is writtten on, no one is going to pay for 
something else.

This naturally changed when Sun decided spliting SunOS into user 
and developer editions was a good idea.

GNU also helped as the initial GNU manifesto required C as the 
main language for its UNIX cloning project (later revisions added 
support for C++, Java, not bothering to check the current 
version).

Had AT&T been allowed to sell Bell Labs research from the get go, 
and history might have turned out quite different for anything 
UNIX related, when it would be a commercial product at the same 
price level as VAX/VMS, System 360 and others.