45 years since its creation. The C language still very popular

Re:45 years since its creation. The C language still very po... by robohamburger on Tuesday May 24, 2016 @01:56PM (#11763907)

Thanks for mentioning algol and cobol! Its easy to forget these languages since they are mostly used on mainframes.

Algol used to be language you submitted things to the ACM in I think and is the systems programming language of the MCP, which my dad still programs in to this day!

It is interesting how many languages had an algol style syntax until C stole the show. I am not sure the world is better for it.

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Re:45 years since its creation. The C language still very po... by nickpsecurity on Tuesday May 24, 2016 @02:11PM (#11764076)

"is the systems programming language of the MCP, which my dad still programs in to this day!"

That's pretty neat. Everyone thinks Burroughs died but they just changed names. Make crazy money. System is quite dated, though, in features and interface. No denying that. ;)

"It is interesting how many languages had an algol style syntax until C stole the show. I am not sure the world is better for it."

I'm not sure on syntax. Decisions by top languages in terms of safety or reliability show ALGOL and Pascal families were right about those. You might like to look at Modula-3 and Component Pascal to see where things might have gone in a parallel universe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modula-3

http://blackboxframework.org/index.php?cID=why-program-in-co...

Note how power, yet simple, Component Pascal is by looking at the full language grammar in two pages of Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Component_Pascal

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