Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2010 14:39:32 -0800 From: Gary Kline <kline@thought.org> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: History of C (Re: Why do you use a devil as a mascot?) Message-ID: <20101114223932.GA10006@thought.org> In-Reply-To: <20101114214141.GD50560@guilt.hydra> References: <201011132032.oADKW4FG025920@mail.r-bonomi.com> <20101113220559.GE45921@guilt.hydra> <4cdfa533.KmbS7pHvQ3h%2BK92G%perryh@pluto.rain.com> <20101114204450.GA9247@thought.org> <20101114214141.GD50560@guilt.hydra>
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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 ]
--
Gary Kline kline@thought.org http://www.thought.org Public Service Unix
http://journey.thought.org
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