[TUHS] History of popularity of C

[arnold at skeeve.com]

Tyler Adams <coppero1237 at gmail.com> wrote:

> So, now Im curious about embedded systems. In my limited experience, every
> "embedded system" I programmed for from 2002-2011 had C as its primary
> language. After 2011, I stopped programming embedded systems, so I don't
> know after that. Why was C so dominant in this space?

First of all, because C is the (almost) perfect language for embedded
systems - tight code generated, language close to the metal, etc. etc.

> Is it because adding
> a backend to gcc was free, C was already well known, and C was sufficiently
> performant?

Cygnus Solutions (Hi John!) had a lot to do with this. They specialized
in porting GCC to different processors used in embedded systems and
provided support.

Arnold