[TUHS] History of popularity of C

Clem Cole clemc at ccc.com
Wed May 27 00:32:43 AEST 2020


On Tue, May 26, 2020 at 12:22 AM Dave Horsfall <dave at horsfall.org> wrote:

> On Sat, 23 May 2020, Clem Cole wrote:
>
> > [...]  Pascal tries to be the answer, but I think it suffered from the
> > fact that it makes Pascal a production quality language, you had a
> > extend it and everybody's extensions were different.
>
> Perhaps I'm the only one here, but when I was taught Pascal (possibly by
> Dr. Lions himself) it was emphasised to us that it was not a production
> language bur a *teaching* language; you designed your algorithm, debugged
> it with the Pascal compiler, then hand-translated it into your favourite
> language (and debugged it again :-/).
>
> Dave that was exactly my point.   Pascal was designed as a teaching
language so Wirth did not put things into the language that made it helpful
as a production language.   So everyone else tried and the language became
a mess.  Everybody peed on it.   Dennis' quote: “When I read commentary
about suggestions for where C should go, I often think back and give thanks
that it wasn't developed under the advice of a worldwide crowd.”
<https://www.inspiringquotes.us/quotes/eDQR_hqwtHAC9>

It's not that you could not turn Pascal into a production language, but
every attempt to try to do so was done in a different manner.   And within
firms it was always different.  Eight different 'Tek Pascal'
implementations -- all close, but different - he says shaking his head.
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