Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language?

From	vandys@vsta.org
Newsgroups	comp.lang.forth
Subject	Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language?
Date	2012-07-25 18:07 +0000
Message-ID	<a7aqu5Fq3uU1@mid.individual.net> (permalink)
References	(3 earlier) <c789bbd2-148c-424c-a828-7298a5eb468a@googlegroups.com> <b3ece2d9-aaed-446f-9d94-f19c6623d791@googlegroups.com> <61e3fc5c-c3b6-4482-a1e8-43a2a0da6b70@po9g2000pbb.googlegroups.com> <6cf1b940-960b-417c-8eef-7de0cb960886@fr28g2000vbb.googlegroups.com> <nfqdnUVDB4fDt43NnZ2dnUVZ_h-dnZ2d@supernews.com>

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>> AT&T pulled of a very clever manoeuvre when they licenced Unix to the
>> universities for next to nothing. Obviously, I don't know if it was a
>> deliberate move, but the side effect was to breed generation after
>> generation of C programmers. That obviously 'bubbled up' to the
>> workplace as those students graduated.
>> ...
> This worked because AT&T was a well-known and respected entity 
> (especially Bell Labs, which developed it).

To be fair, C hit a very sweet spot at the time.  We were faced with PL/1
type languages, Pascal-oid ones, Fortran was still around, and then there
were the brutally ugly ones like Bliss.  C let you quickly write source which
compiled into decent machine code.  The compiler fit on a PDP-11.  The C
library provided a lot of stuff which saved you time, and C was good at
not getting in the way of what you were trying to do while still being
helpful.

Not only was the software easily gotten (at a university, anyway), but the
documentation was very approachable.  Folks may not realize what a difference
it made, but Kernighan/Ritchie/Thompson and such used a very readable,
conversational style which made it much easier to get up to speed on what
they provided.  The norm back then was IBM-style "this page intentionally
left blank" style of technical tomes.

And yes, I was one of those who picked up C in college, then helped it
displace Modcal at HP once I was in the workforce.  With hindsight I still
believe it was the optimal choice for that time in technology.

-- 
Andy Valencia
Home page: http://www.vsta.org/andy/
To contact me: http://www.vsta.org/contact/andy.html

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The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Bluebee <visualforth@rocketmail.com> - 2012-07-17 17:57 -0700
  Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Mark Wills <markrobertwills@yahoo.co.uk> - 2012-07-18 01:30 -0700
    Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2012-07-18 15:19 +0200
      Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Mark Wills <markrobertwills@yahoo.co.uk> - 2012-07-18 08:24 -0700
      Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? hughaguilar96@yahoo.com - 2012-07-18 16:25 -0700
        Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Ron Aaron <rambamist@gmail.com> - 2012-07-19 08:35 +0300
          Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Hannu Vuolasaho <hannu.vuolasaho@nospam.tut.fi.invalid> - 2012-07-19 06:31 +0000
          Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? visploveslisp@gmail.com - 2012-07-25 16:49 -0700
        Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Howerd <howerdo@yahoo.co.uk> - 2012-07-19 01:55 -0700
          Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2012-07-19 09:09 -1000
            Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Hugh Aguilar <hughaguilar96@yahoo.com> - 2012-07-19 19:36 -0700
              Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Spam@ControlQ.com - 2012-07-20 12:22 -0400
            Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? kenney@cix.compulink.co.uk - 2012-07-20 12:08 -0500
          Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Hugh Aguilar <hughaguilar96@yahoo.com> - 2012-07-19 18:49 -0700
            Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Howerd <howerdo@yahoo.co.uk> - 2012-07-20 00:39 -0700
              Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Hugh Aguilar <hughaguilar96@yahoo.com> - 2012-07-24 00:21 -0700
        Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Albert van der Horst <albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl> - 2012-07-19 11:20 +0000
        Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? "Clyde W. Phillips Jr." <cwpjr02@gmail.com> - 2012-07-24 20:01 -0700
          Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Hugh Aguilar <hughaguilar96@yahoo.com> - 2012-07-24 23:00 -0700
            Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Mark Wills <markrobertwills@yahoo.co.uk> - 2012-07-25 01:22 -0700
              Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Hugh Aguilar <hughaguilar96@yahoo.com> - 2012-07-25 01:51 -0700
              Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2012-07-25 07:18 -1000
                Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? vandys@vsta.org - 2012-07-25 18:07 +0000
                Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Spam@ControlQ.com - 2012-07-25 16:53 -0400
                Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Mark Wills <markrobertwills@yahoo.co.uk> - 2012-07-26 01:46 -0700
                Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Hugh Aguilar <hughaguilar96@yahoo.com> - 2012-07-26 22:48 -0700
                Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2012-07-27 23:44 +0200
                Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Hugh Aguilar <hughaguilar96@yahoo.com> - 2012-07-27 15:25 -0700
                Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2012-07-28 00:44 +0200
                Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Marc Olschok <nobody@nowhere.invalid> - 2012-07-28 18:15 +0000
                Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2012-07-28 13:35 -0500
                Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-07-28 21:59 -0700
                Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Spam@ControlQ.com - 2012-07-30 11:53 -0400
                Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Hugh Aguilar <hughaguilar96@yahoo.com> - 2012-07-30 20:38 -0700
              Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2012-07-25 23:25 +0200
              Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? visploveslisp@gmail.com - 2012-07-25 16:52 -0700
                Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Hugh Aguilar <hughaguilar96@yahoo.com> - 2012-07-25 17:00 -0700
              Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? visploveslisp@gmail.com - 2012-07-25 17:01 -0700
              Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? visualforth@rocketmail.com - 2012-07-25 17:10 -0700
                Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Hugh Aguilar <hughaguilar96@yahoo.com> - 2012-07-25 22:44 -0700
              Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Doug Hoffman <glidedog@gmail.com> - 2012-07-26 05:24 -0400
                Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Doug Hoffman <glidedog@gmail.com> - 2012-07-26 05:26 -0400
                Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Hugh Aguilar <hughaguilar96@yahoo.com> - 2012-07-26 22:26 -0700
                Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Doug Hoffman <glidedog@gmail.com> - 2012-07-27 13:52 -0400
                Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Hugh Aguilar <hughaguilar96@yahoo.com> - 2012-07-27 15:52 -0700
            Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Hugh Aguilar <hughaguilar96@yahoo.com> - 2012-07-25 01:30 -0700
    Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Bluebee <visualforth@rocketmail.com> - 2012-07-21 16:17 -0700
  Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2012-07-18 15:13 +0200
    Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? visploveslisp@gmail.com - 2012-07-28 21:56 -0700

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