History of C (Re: Why do you use a devil as a mascot?)

[Gary Kline]

On Sun, Nov 14, 2010 at 02:41:41PM -0700, Chad Perrin wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 14, 2010 at 12:44:50PM -0800, Gary Kline wrote:
> > 
> > 	I'd vote for "E" since that might have more positive
> > 	connotations that "D".  :-)  Skip "F" altogether.
> 
> That might be a good point.
> 
> Google has taught me that single-letter names for programming languages
> (or anything else, apparently) are not so good for the Internet age,
> however.


	I won't argue the point! but how about "IEEE"?  I subscribed
	to that for years and some people noted that spoken as a word,
	"Ieee" was like the primal scream!  Hm.... maybe the EEE
	language?!
> 
> 
> > 
> > 	Just about the whole Murray Hill gang stopped by Cray 
> > 	(in Chippewa Falls), late 80's, and I remember asking Dennis
> > 	what the deal was with "C++"; I remember him dodging the
> > 	thing.  Whoever-invented-C++ did a convoluted job, i s my
> > 	opinion.  It might be nice to add classes to C, but that's
> > 	about it.
> 
> Perhaps ironically, some called C++ "C With Classes" early on, as I
> recall.  Meanwhile, Objective-C ended up being what C++ initially claimed
> it would be (a strict superset of C that provided facilities for OOP),
> while C++ failed to live up to its own promises while expanding into all
> kinds of things that were not actually desired in those early days (like
> a politician once elected to office).  This is, of course, largely the
> perspective of an outsider, so take it for what it's worth.
> 

	About 2000, 2001 was when I shucked my "muuz" game/mind-machine 
	effort.  It was over 10K line of C-ish code that I rehacked into 
	C++.  Figured since C++ was "_the_ new language" that it was a 
	good move.  Then I realized how you could spend a lifetime
	learning C++ I backed off and kept it simple.

> 
> > 
> > 	TWo questions: didn't IBM create CPL? And doesn't BCPL
> > 	Stand for "British Computer Programming Language"?  (I did have
> > 	both editions of the C book by Brian and DEnnis; then loaned the
> > 	2nd edition and never got ti back.)  I think Dennis gives credit
> > 	to BCPL Somewhere.  Pretty sure those guys are all retired to
> > 	somewhere *warm and sunny* by now!
> 
> The second edition is still in stores all over the place.  It's the first
> edition that would be difficult to find these days, I think.  My father
> tells me he has a copy, though I've never seen it; I only have the second
> edition.


	Yeah, it's on amazon.com, but "my bible" {seriously!} is good
	enough.  Dog-earned and coffee-stained; but it's the same as the
	2nd Ed.  The 2nd is ANSI-ified, IIRC.

	gary
> 
> -- 
> Chad Perrin [ original content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ]



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