29 Apr
2016
29 Apr
'16
11:51 a.m.
On 4/29/2016 9:55 AM, Paul Koning wrote:
I say it is more do to the hardware. 11's popped up everywhere.
The major feature ( I say bug ) was the the idea of byte pointers.
(Designing a cpu about the same era, just word address with byte load
and store opcodes. No C for this beast)
Byte addressing and lack of DECIMAL instructions where the major
ideas on the PDP 11 and 18 bit addressing. That made the 11 useful
until the VAX came out. I also suspect the LOW cost of UNIX (at one
time) was a big factor with having C around. Did Unix have
any other languages with it?
Ben.
C just seemed to hit a sweet spot for
functionality versus
complexity - in the syntax, in the semantics; all over.
I think it is a case of Darwin's principle, expressed correctly:
"survival of the fit enough". C sucks pretty badly in any number of
places (semicolon rules is one example if you want to pick on syntax,
and the semantics are an even easier target). But it was cheap,
available, and good enough to do useful work.
paul