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From: "Nasser M. Abbasi" <nma@12000.org>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: why the pascal family of languages (Pascal, Ada, Modula-2,2,Oberon,
 Delphi, Algol,...) failed compared to the C family?
Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2014 07:25:17 -0500
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Date: 2014-07-16T07:25:17-05:00
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The first language I really liked was Pascal.
But the Pascal family of languages (including Ada) have
clearly failed to become popular, at least compared
to the C-family (C, C++, C#, ....)

The question is why did this happen?

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.  VMS did not choose C (considered a huge
blunder by many. They choose Bliss
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BLISS instead! and we
all know what happens to VMS.

What is your theory on this? Was there another
reason or set of reasons?

Can we all blame this success of the C family of
languages on Dennis Ritchie and Brian Kernighan
brilliance and it being used for Unix?

--Nasser