4 ms·

A big reason for C popularity was that for many, it came free with OS, especially in university. In environment with less "language X is shipped by default", i

by p_l 5y ago

A big reason for C popularity was that for many, it came free with OS, especially in university. In environment with less "language X is shipped by default", it had much less impact except for crossing over of developers who did work with it on other platforms (which is how Turbo Pascal/Delphi kept on significant marketshare in PC space for a long time).

zozbot234 5y ago
Yup, gwbasic and qbasic shipped by default on most PC's, and this didn't exactly hurt their popularity. Similarly, one reason JS is so incredibly popular today is that you can start hacking stuff in it with just notepad and a web browser.
adamc 5y ago
It also became popular because in the 1980s it was a way of wringing decent performance out of x86 machines (then becoming popular) without having to write everything in assembler.
- p_l 5y ago
  It wasn't unique or even super popular on that front, at least not everywhere. In fact, in some places, Borland's Turbo Pascal was the king, with C second. C domination really was linked more to network effects in my experience.
  - adamc 5y ago
    It didn't have to be unique to be a major force.