Organization: FidoNet node 1:106/2000.25 - COMM Port One, Sugar Land TX
Lines: 25
Peter Moylan (1:105/42) writes to All:
>One of the many reasons for the popularity of C is that C is not
>Ada. This matters a lot in the U.S., I suspect, because of the
>DoD pressure, but it is less of a factor in the rest of the
>world.
Actually, I don't think that ANY of the reasons why C is popular is because it is not Ada. My understanding from talking to various people who do development for the DoD is that it is extremely easy to get a waiver from the DoD and use whatever language you like. (Typically C and C++.)
I suspect that the primary reason why C is popular is because it is a "Lingua Franca" for a large group of programmers. That is, in fact, why I learned C. (Now I make a living at it and what Modula code I've written at work has formally been banished to the nether regions of the file server.)
That means that C is popular because, well, C is popular.
What's more, to a large number of (generally not too terribly knowledgeable) people, "real programmers" use C instead of whatever other languages there are.
As I recall, Modula-2 got a VERY good reception in the USA, but those most positive about it were those in academia. Many of the staunchest C fanatics refuse to consider ANYTHING that the "academiacs" do to be worthy of their time. Those companies that produced products written in Modula did not dominate their markets and several high-profile Modula programs sank without trace. That tends to make Modula look bad DESPITE the fact that those programs were probably pretty good AND the fact that it's possib
le to write a bad program in any language.
In addition, those making the decisions about which language to use (at least in those places I know about) are few in number and generally ignorant of those issues that tend to make Modula-2 an easier language to use, and highly sensitive to things like the lack of a large pool of Modula programmers and the nonportability of the system modules. (In fact, it is the fact that they don't believe that, should I leave, they can hire anyone else to maintain the Modula code that I write that has caused my code
