[TUHS] History of popularity of C

[CHARLES KESTER]

> On May 21, 2020 at 10:35 AM arnold at skeeve.com wrote:
> 
> C++ became the language of choice on the PC when MSFT started pushing
> its compiler and Visual Studio IDE.

Microsoft C 7.0 already had a C++ compiler and an early version of MFC in 1992.

But you're right: it was when Visual C++ 1.0 came out in 1993 that C++ became
really popular among developers targeting Windows.  VC1.0 introduced "wizards" 
for MFC that produced a skeleton application to which many people had to make only 
a few additions in order to come up with a shippable product.  The market was 
soon flooded with apps that had what I called a "wizard smell".  (The more
charitable phrase was "look and feel".)

Of course, as with all framework-based code, wizard-generated apps couldn't 
distinguish themselves in the market for very long and the bar was raised.
But by then C++ was well-established as the language of choice.

None of which has anything to do with Unix, I admit.