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> One could argue that C's success is largely because[...] Why do so many ignore the obvious? Ergonomics matters. At a time when most programmers didn't touc
by cxr 3y ago
> One could argue that C's success is largely because[...]
Why do so many ignore the obvious? Ergonomics matters. At a time when most programmers didn't touch type (even the big stars), the economy of being able to type `int foo(int bar) { ... }` is a major productivity boost in comparison to `PROCEDURE foo(VAR bar: INTEGER); BEGIN ... END foo;`. Hell, that even bothers modern programmers. I mean, I know people whose entire reason for switching to Chrome when it came out was that the toolbars at the top of the screen were 18 pixels shorter or whatever. That's it. People are incredibly capricious.
Factor in the environment—Unix has a widely acknowledged beauty/elegance in its design—and it's not hard to see why people gravitated to C, even at a time when Pascal was anointed as the official development language by Apple for a platform where people were known to be able to make money writing apps and selling them to businesses and consumers alike.