Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2010 12:44:50 -0800 From: Gary Kline <kline@thought.org> To: perryh@pluto.rain.com Cc: perrin@apotheon.com, freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: History of C (Re: Why do you use a devil as a mascot?) Message-ID: <20101114204450.GA9247@thought.org> In-Reply-To: <4cdfa533.KmbS7pHvQ3h%2BK92G%perryh@pluto.rain.com> References: <201011132032.oADKW4FG025920@mail.r-bonomi.com> <20101113220559.GE45921@guilt.hydra> <4cdfa533.KmbS7pHvQ3h%2BK92G%perryh@pluto.rain.com>
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On Sun, Nov 14, 2010 at 01:00:35AM -0800, perryh@pluto.rain.com wrote: > Chad Perrin <perrin@apotheon.com> wrote: > > On Sat, Nov 13, 2010 at 02:32:04PM -0600, Robert Bonomi wrote: > > > should the one-leter name for 'c++' be 'd' or 'p'? > > > (nobody could decide/agree, which *IS* why it is 'c++' > > > to this day) > > > > ... D is already another programming language ... > > It wasn't back then :) > > > I don't know what this P has to do with it. > > You have revealed yourself as a newbie :) > > In the beginning there was CPL, the "Combined Programming Language." > It was large enough to be infeasible to implement using then-current > technologies, so the "Bootstrap Combined Programming Language" (BCPL) > was invented, with the intent that the first CPL compiler would be > written in BCPL. > > CPL never amounted to much -- I don't know whether it was ever > implemented at all -- but BCPL developed a following. Someone > (at Bell Labs?) produced a derivative called B, from which a few > researchers at Murray Hill derived C. Thus the question: should > the next language in the series be named D (next alphabetically) > or P (next letter of BCPL)? I'd vote for "E" since that might have more positive connotations that "D". :-) Skip "F" altogether. 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. 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! gary > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscribe@freebsd.org" -- Gary Kline kline@thought.org http://www.thought.org Public Service Unix http://journey.thought.org For non-text MUA's http://theopenpress.com/index.php?a=print&code=00&id=88532
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