From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,FREEMAIL_FROM autolearn=unavailable autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Received: by 10.66.122.101 with SMTP id lr5mr15353934pab.19.1405532505566; Wed, 16 Jul 2014 10:41:45 -0700 (PDT) X-Received: by 10.50.138.67 with SMTP id qo3mr335288igb.13.1405532505078; Wed, 16 Jul 2014 10:41:45 -0700 (PDT) Path: eternal-september.org!reader01.eternal-september.org!reader02.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!news.glorb.com!h18no2687675igc.0!news-out.google.com!gf2ni862igb.0!nntp.google.com!h18no2687664igc.0!postnews.google.com!glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2014 10:41:44 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com; posting-host=66.126.103.122; posting-account=KSa2aQoAAACOxnC0usBJYX8NE3x3a1Xq NNTP-Posting-Host: 66.126.103.122 References: User-Agent: G2/1.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-ID: <2dac5ec4-1923-4ad5-9761-c41ec3bec87f@googlegroups.com> Subject: Re: why the pascal family of languages (Pascal, Ada, Modula-2,2,Oberon, Delphi, Algol,...) failed compared to the C family? From: Adam Beneschan Injection-Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2014 17:41:45 +0000 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Xref: news.eternal-september.org comp.lang.ada:20976 Date: 2014-07-16T10:41:44-07:00 List-Id: On Wednesday, July 16, 2014 5:25:17 AM UTC-7, Nasser M. Abbasi wrote: > The first language I really liked was Pascal. >=20 > But the Pascal family of languages (including Ada) have > clearly failed to become popular, at least compared > to the C-family (C, C++, C#, ....) I haven't researched this much, so this response is just my take based on m= y impressions of what has gone on. Algol, Pascal's predecessor (at least when it comes to language syntax), wa= s never really popular in the U.S., although I don't know why. Pascal was designed as a teaching language. And it does seem that it was u= sed a lot in introductory computer science courses after it was created. U= nfortunately, Pascal wasn't general-purpose enough to be used for everythin= g in the real world, and I suspect that that's why the C family took over: = students who learned Pascal in college found that it couldn't be used in a = production environment without extensions, and C was the best and most viab= le alternative (compared to COBOL, FORTRAN, BASIC, and maybe PL/I although = that language never took off either). Having a set of library routines hel= ped (the original Pascal didn't even have a concept of using an external li= brary). So I think there's some truth in your idea of Unix being built on = C, which made it easier to define C-based libraries to interface with the O= S. Nevertheless, Pascal could have included a way to interface to an OS (e= ven an OS written in C). If this had been added to the language early enou= gh, along with some other changes to make Pascal suitable for production us= e (the requirement for array types to have fixed bounds was a definite hind= rance, IMHO), I think it might have won out. By the time Ada and Modula came along, it was too late, I suspect. It didn= 't help that many university faculty didn't want to be associated with a la= nguage whose design was spearheaded by the U.S. military. > My theory: C was used to develop Unix/Linux and > Windows, and this made it easier for applications > to be written in C/C++ since the interface to the OS > was easier.=20 As I mentioned, you may be correct with respect to Unix/Linux. As for Wind= ows, I'd guess that C has already "won" by the time Windows development was= started, so Windows being written in C/C++ wouldn't have been really a cau= se. But it could have reinforced C's dominance. -- Adam