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=-2.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,MAILING_LIST_MULTI autolearn=unavailable autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,c406e0c4a6eb74ed X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news1.google.com!news2.google.com!proxad.net!usenet-fr.net!enst.fr!melchior!cuivre.fr.eu.org!melchior.frmug.org!not-for-mail From: "Alexander E. Kopilovich" Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: ADA Popularity Discussion Request Date: Sun, 12 Sep 2004 23:05:17 +0400 (MSD) Organization: Cuivre, Argent, Or Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: lovelace.ada-france.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: melchior.cuivre.fr.eu.org 1095017334 25053 212.85.156.195 (12 Sep 2004 19:28:54 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@melchior.cuivre.fr.eu.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 12 Sep 2004 19:28:54 +0000 (UTC) To: comp.lang.ada@ada-france.org Return-Path: In-Reply-To: ; from Larry Kilgallen at 12 Sep 2004 08:02:07 -0500 X-Mailer: Mail/@ [v2.44 MSDOS] X-Virus-Scanned: by amavisd-new-20030616-p10 (Debian) at ada-france.org X-BeenThere: comp.lang.ada@ada-france.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.4 Precedence: list List-Id: "Gateway to the comp.lang.ada Usenet newsgroup" List-Unsubscribe: , List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:3635 Date: 2004-09-12T23:05:17+04:00 Larry Kilgallen wrote: > >> That was because of the low cost of the Unix/C combination to academia. > > > > Wasn't this also because it was quite better than the assembler ? Was there > > many other choices ? > > There were _many_ other languages. What distinguished C was economic, > drawn not out of generosity but out of US Federal restrictions on the > activities of AT&T subsidiary Bell Labs. Well, this explains why many common hindrances weren't applied to C. But this isn't enough for success of such a scale. Some powerful drive, some important internal qualities are necessary for that. And I think, that being far from a fan of C (I really never liked it, although I was forced to use it along with C++ - in last decade perhaps more than any other programming language), I still see those important internal qualities of C. There are two of them: 1) fundamentally sound abstract model, around which the language is built - finite automata; 2) very good balance between various aspects of a practical programming language, including careful placement of the underlying abstract model under the hood of a set of (flavors of) already familiar (to the programming community) constructs; no one of those aspects reached perfection in C, but that was (and is) the balance that determines success for massive and diverse use of general-purpose programming language. Alexander Kopilovich aek@vib.usr.pu.ru Saint-Petersburg Russia