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> And that’s why C is still the best language for systems programming I think the only reason C is very popular for systems programming is that it allows you t

> And that’s why C is still the best language for systems programming I think the only reason C is very popular for systems programming is that it allows you to do most of what you could do in assembler, but in an easier-to-work way. So basically C is an "acceptable, easier-to-use assembler", but far from ideal, because of the reasons you point out. Honestly, the popularity of C itself is due to the success of UNIX, not due to any particular quality. On the other hand, the K&R "The C Programming Language" book is a classic, a well written book which surely does a great job of introducing the language. But back then in the late 1960s, a new language called ALGOL-68 was specified, back then a very advanced language which had powerful features even for 2017. The problem is that nobody dared to implement the full language. CPL was a stripped down implementation of Algol-68, this was then stripped down even more to BCPL; then it was extremely stripped down to B (only one datatype), then Dennis Ritchie kept most of the syntax and added other data types and C was born. C was never designed from the ground up to be the best systems programming language possible; only to be able to work for Dennis Ritchie & friends' "toy" operating system, UNIX, a very stripped-down MULTICS. I think the "UNIX-Haters Handbook" has a section devoted to C criticism.

Nelson69 9y ago
For big computers, C is good for systems programming because everyone else uses it and because of the titanic effort that has been put in to building really good optimizing C compilers. UNIX came along but when C killed pascal, IBM, Microsoft, everybody was on C's dick. On small embedded computers, I think C is popular because it's so easy to build something that resembles a C compiler. The fact is, undergrad compiler classes almost build C compilers (some universities might actually go all the way.) You can almost build a yacc grammar that will read C and emit assembly. The small computer embedded vendors have a difficult problem, they need to provide tooling and they don't usually have giant piles of developers to sell to. So they dust off some abandoned "C compiler" they found in the gutter, add their hardware to it and call it good. At least that's my theory and I've seen some rough "compiler work" from some pretty substantial hardware vendors. In fact, if you're running a 16bit or smaller part or a weird part, I have yet to see a decent C compiler from a hardware vendor.
- davemp 9y ago
  This is a very important point. The hardware world itself suffers from this effect even more than software with synthesis and PNR for verilog/VHDL. I'm hoping the compilation world progresses enough with efforts such as LLVM to break our chains to crufty languages.
- sedachv 9y ago
  > You can almost build a yacc grammar that will read C and emit assembly. I have looked at a lot of C parsers and compilers and have written a C to Lisp transpiler and this statement is ludicrously wrong. You cannot even parse C code with yacc because of typedefs. The grammar of C is context-sensitive. And this is after the C code has been preprocessed, something that also cannot be done with yacc. C compilers are easy to port to different machines, but that is because C is a very poor language in terms of features and control flow constructs. For the limited amount of things that C gives you as a language it also comes with a huge amount of complicated baggage when it comes to implementation and corner cases.
  - JoeAltmaier 9y ago
    True about the preprocessor. But the typedef issue is usually (trivially) solved with a link between the symbol table and the scanner.
WalterBright 9y ago
> Honestly, the popularity of C itself is due to the success of UNIX, I beg to differ. C was a fairly obscure language until MS-DOS came out. C turned out to be ideal for programming on DOS, and DOS programming was far and away the most programmed system in the world for a decade and a half. MS-DOS also made C++ into a major language (via Zortech C++). When ZTC++ came out the penetration and popularity of C++ went through the roof. (Yes, I'm tooting my own horn a bit here. But I honestly believe it is ZTC++ that got C++ its critical mass.) MS-DOS made C and C++ into the juggernauts they became.
- turboturb 9y ago
  In my part of the world, we used the Borland compilers for MS-DOS, Turbo C and Turbo C++. Turbo Assembler and Turbo Pascal was also popular. Never heard of Zortech C++ before
  - WalterBright 9y ago
    Borland decided to develop TC++ because of the success of ZTC++. (I know some of the people involved.) Before ZTC++, C++ was a niche language, and Borland was having great success with Turbo Pascal. ZTC++ came out in 1987, and TC++ in 1990. After the success of ZTC++ and TC++, Microsoft changed direction and decided to develop a C++ compiler, too. I heard (but was never able to confirm) that Microsoft had earlier been developing their own object oriented extensions to C called C*.
    - p0nce 9y ago
      Coming from Turbo Pascal TC++ was a bit underwhelming. When I tried it didn't colour syntax, there was those weird #include and compin=ling felt so slow. So my first contact with C was pretty negative :\
  - IncRnd 9y ago
    ZTC was a fantastic compiler, that is until it was purchased by Symantec, renamed, and become slow and bloated. I could even say something similar about turbo c vs turbo c++, but that was more due to the language issues with c++ vs c.
agumonkey 9y ago
I was VERY surprised to read about the linguistic traits of [B]CPL .. C was a pragmatic regression in that regard.

Nelson69 9y ago

For big computers, C is good for systems programming because everyone else uses it and because of the titanic effort that has been put in to building really good optimizing C compilers. UNIX came along but when C killed pascal, IBM, Microsoft, everybody was on C's dick. On small embedded computers, I think C is popular because it's so easy to build something that resembles a C compiler. The fact is, undergrad compiler classes almost build C compilers (some universities might actually go all the way.) You can almost build a yacc grammar that will read C and emit assembly. The small computer embedded vendors have a difficult problem, they need to provide tooling and they don't usually have giant piles of developers to sell to. So they dust off some abandoned "C compiler" they found in the gutter, add their hardware to it and call it good. At least that's my theory and I've seen some rough "compiler work" from some pretty substantial hardware vendors. In fact, if you're running a 16bit or smaller part or a weird part, I have yet to see a decent C compiler from a hardware vendor.

davemp 9y ago
This is a very important point. The hardware world itself suffers from this effect even more than software with synthesis and PNR for verilog/VHDL. I'm hoping the compilation world progresses enough with efforts such as LLVM to break our chains to crufty languages.
sedachv 9y ago
> You can almost build a yacc grammar that will read C and emit assembly. I have looked at a lot of C parsers and compilers and have written a C to Lisp transpiler and this statement is ludicrously wrong. You cannot even parse C code with yacc because of typedefs. The grammar of C is context-sensitive. And this is after the C code has been preprocessed, something that also cannot be done with yacc. C compilers are easy to port to different machines, but that is because C is a very poor language in terms of features and control flow constructs. For the limited amount of things that C gives you as a language it also comes with a huge amount of complicated baggage when it comes to implementation and corner cases.
- JoeAltmaier 9y ago
  True about the preprocessor. But the typedef issue is usually (trivially) solved with a link between the symbol table and the scanner.

WalterBright 9y ago

> Honestly, the popularity of C itself is due to the success of UNIX, I beg to differ. C was a fairly obscure language until MS-DOS came out. C turned out to be ideal for programming on DOS, and DOS programming was far and away the most programmed system in the world for a decade and a half. MS-DOS also made C++ into a major language (via Zortech C++). When ZTC++ came out the penetration and popularity of C++ went through the roof. (Yes, I'm tooting my own horn a bit here. But I honestly believe it is ZTC++ that got C++ its critical mass.) MS-DOS made C and C++ into the juggernauts they became.

turboturb 9y ago
In my part of the world, we used the Borland compilers for MS-DOS, Turbo C and Turbo C++. Turbo Assembler and Turbo Pascal was also popular. Never heard of Zortech C++ before
- WalterBright 9y ago
  Borland decided to develop TC++ because of the success of ZTC++. (I know some of the people involved.) Before ZTC++, C++ was a niche language, and Borland was having great success with Turbo Pascal. ZTC++ came out in 1987, and TC++ in 1990. After the success of ZTC++ and TC++, Microsoft changed direction and decided to develop a C++ compiler, too. I heard (but was never able to confirm) that Microsoft had earlier been developing their own object oriented extensions to C called C*.
  - p0nce 9y ago
    Coming from Turbo Pascal TC++ was a bit underwhelming. When I tried it didn't colour syntax, there was those weird #include and compin=ling felt so slow. So my first contact with C was pretty negative :\
- IncRnd 9y ago
  ZTC was a fantastic compiler, that is until it was purchased by Symantec, renamed, and become slow and bloated. I could even say something similar about turbo c vs turbo c++, but that was more due to the language issues with c++ vs c.

agumonkey 9y ago

I was VERY surprised to read about the linguistic traits of [B]CPL .. C was a pragmatic regression in that regard.