The Unix Heritage Society mailing list
 help / color / mirror / Atom feed
* [TUHS] History of popularity of C
@ 2020-05-21 15:27 Tyler Adams
  2020-05-21 16:10 ` Toby Thain
                   ` (3 more replies)
  0 siblings, 4 replies; 105+ messages in thread
From: Tyler Adams @ 2020-05-21 15:27 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 205 bytes --]

Does anybody have any good resources on the history of the popularity of C?
I'm looking for data to resolve a claim that C is so prolific and
influential because it's so easy to write a C compiler.

Tyler

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 304 bytes --]

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 105+ messages in thread
* Re: [TUHS] History of popularity of C
@ 2020-05-21 18:28 Noel Chiappa
  2020-05-21 18:44 ` Thomas Paulsen
  2020-05-22  8:52 ` Tom Ivar Helbekkmo via TUHS
  0 siblings, 2 replies; 105+ messages in thread
From: Noel Chiappa @ 2020-05-21 18:28 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: coppero1237, tuhs; +Cc: jnc

    > From: Tyler Adams

    > C is so prolific and influential because it's so easy to write a C
    > compiler.

I'm not sure the implied corollary ('it's _not_ easy to write compilers for
other languages') is correct.

As a datapoint, I pulled "Algol 60 Implementation" (Randell and Russell) off
the shelf, and it reveals that the Algol 60 compiler discussed there (for the
KDF9), using lessons from the Algol compiler for the Electrologica X1, was
3600 words (roughly 3 instructions/word). So it was small.

Now, small is not necessarily equivalent to easy, but it was clearly not a
mountainous job. I imagine early BCPL, etc compilers were roughly similar.
The only language from that era which I can think of which was a slog,
compiler-wise, was PL/I.


I suspect the real reason for C's sucess was the nature of the language.
When I first saw it (ca. 1976), it struck me as a quantum improvement over
its contemporaries.

    Noel

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 105+ messages in thread
* Re: [TUHS] History of popularity of C
@ 2020-06-06 21:49 Doug McIlroy
  2020-06-06 21:55 ` Warner Losh
                   ` (3 more replies)
  0 siblings, 4 replies; 105+ messages in thread
From: Doug McIlroy @ 2020-06-06 21:49 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: tuhs

> Steve Johnson's position paper on optimising compilers may amuse you:
> https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/567532.567542

Indeed. This passage struck a particular chord:

"I contend that the class of applications that depend on, for example, loop
optimization and dead code elimination for their efficient solution is of
modest size, growing smaller, and often very susceptible to expression in
applicative languages where the optimization is built into the individual
applicative operators."

I don't know whether I saw that note at the time, but since then I've
come to believe, particularly in regard to C, that one case of dead-code
elmination should be guaranteed. That case is if(0), where 0 is the
value of a constant expression.

This guarantee would take the place of many--possibly even
most--ifdefs. Every ifdef is an ugly intrusion and a pain to read.
Syntactically it occurs at top level completely out of sync with the
indentation and flow of text. Conversion to if would be a big win.

Doug

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 105+ messages in thread

end of thread, other threads:[~2020-06-08 16:32 UTC | newest]

Thread overview: 105+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed)
-- links below jump to the message on this page --
2020-05-21 15:27 [TUHS] History of popularity of C Tyler Adams
2020-05-21 16:10 ` Toby Thain
2020-05-21 16:30   ` Larry McVoy
2020-05-21 17:22     ` John Foust
2020-05-21 20:17       ` Toby Thain
2020-05-21 16:43   ` Tony Finch
2020-05-21 17:35     ` arnold
2020-05-21 19:16       ` CHARLES KESTER
2020-05-21 20:33         ` Thomas Paulsen
2020-05-21 20:09       ` Toby Thain
2020-05-21 20:12       ` Tony Finch
2020-05-22  8:28       ` David Arnold
2020-05-21 20:07     ` Toby Thain
2020-05-21 20:56   ` Clem Cole
2020-05-21 23:45     ` Toby Thain
2020-05-21 23:57       ` Richard Salz
2020-05-22  0:17         ` Toby Thain
2020-05-22  4:10         ` John Gilmore
2020-05-22 14:11           ` Larry McVoy
2020-05-22 14:34             ` Richard Salz
2020-05-22 14:17           ` Larry McVoy
2020-05-22  7:42         ` arnold
2020-05-22 23:50   ` Greg A. Woods
2020-05-23  7:28     ` Andy Kosela
2020-05-23 17:08     ` Clem Cole
2020-05-23 17:22       ` Richard Salz
2020-05-23 18:42       ` Derek Fawcus
2020-05-23 19:28       ` Michael Kjörling
2020-05-26  4:21       ` Dave Horsfall
2020-05-26  4:32         ` Ed Carp
2020-05-26  8:21           ` Rob Pike
2020-05-26 14:44             ` Clem Cole
2020-05-26 14:32         ` Clem Cole
2020-05-26 19:50           ` Greg A. Woods
2020-05-26 21:48             ` Thomas Paulsen
2020-05-26 22:36               ` Greg A. Woods
2020-05-27 14:37                 ` Ronald Natalie
2020-05-27 15:09                   ` Clem Cole
2020-05-27 16:11                   ` Thomas Paulsen
2020-05-27 19:49                     ` Greg A. Woods
2020-05-27 20:13                       ` Larry McVoy
2020-05-27 20:23                         ` Richard Salz
2020-05-27 21:00                       ` Nevin Liber
2020-05-27 23:17                         ` Greg A. Woods
2020-06-05 20:57                           ` Dave Horsfall
2020-06-05 21:40                             ` Nemo Nusquam
2020-06-05 21:47                             ` Richard Salz
2020-06-05 22:01                               ` Bakul Shah
2020-06-06 20:49                   ` Ed Carp
2020-06-06 21:08                     ` Thomas Paulsen
2020-06-06 21:13                       ` Larry McVoy
2020-06-06 22:27                       ` Ed Carp
2020-06-06 23:14                         ` Tyler Adams
2020-06-07  5:57                         ` arnold
2020-06-07  9:22                           ` Andy Kosela
2020-06-07  9:39                             ` Ed Carp
2020-06-07 10:02                             ` Brantley Coile
2020-06-07 11:30                             ` Thomas Paulsen
2020-06-07 15:26                             ` Clem Cole
2020-06-07 15:52                               ` Larry McVoy
2020-06-08  1:02                                 ` Adam Thornton
2020-06-08  8:04                                   ` Thomas Paulsen
2020-06-07 17:26                               ` Bakul Shah
2020-06-07 17:35                               ` Bakul Shah
2020-06-07 18:50                               ` Nemo Nusquam
2020-06-07 21:15                                 ` Chris Torek
2020-06-07 22:16                                   ` Dan Cross
2020-06-07 22:56                                     ` Chris Torek
2020-06-07 23:14                                       ` [TUHS] Comparative languages Warren Toomey
2020-06-08  0:24                                       ` [TUHS] History of popularity of C Bram Wyllie
2020-06-08  5:48                                   ` Lars Brinkhoff
2020-06-06 23:31                     ` Bakul Shah
2020-06-07  0:12                       ` Greg A. Woods
2020-06-07 11:04                     ` emanuel stiebler
2020-06-07 11:33                       ` Thomas Paulsen
2020-05-26 15:19         ` Toby Thain
2020-05-26 16:00         ` Thomas Paulsen
2020-05-26 16:21           ` Christopher Browne
2020-05-26 19:29             ` Thomas Paulsen
2020-05-26 19:55             ` Dan Cross
2020-05-26 20:00               ` Jon Steinhart
2020-05-21 16:18 ` Jim Capp
2020-05-21 18:58 ` A. P. Garcia
2020-05-21 19:02 ` Clem Cole
2020-05-21 18:28 Noel Chiappa
2020-05-21 18:44 ` Thomas Paulsen
2020-05-21 19:06   ` Paul Winalski
2020-05-21 20:27     ` Thomas Paulsen
2020-05-22  8:52 ` Tom Ivar Helbekkmo via TUHS
2020-05-22  9:51   ` Tyler Adams
2020-05-22 11:09     ` arnold
2020-05-22 11:15       ` Tyler Adams
2020-05-22 18:40         ` John Gilmore
2020-05-22 19:01           ` Toby Thain
2020-05-22 19:35             ` Larry McVoy
2020-05-22 19:31           ` Larry McVoy
2020-05-22 20:19           ` Michael Kjörling
2020-05-22 14:59       ` Toby Thain
2020-05-22 11:58     ` A. P. Garcia
2020-06-06 21:49 Doug McIlroy
2020-06-06 21:55 ` Warner Losh
2020-06-08 13:56 ` Derek Fawcus
2020-06-08 15:20   ` Richard Salz
2020-06-08 15:30 ` Dan Cross
2020-06-08 16:32 ` Tony Finch

This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox;
as well as URLs for NNTP newsgroup(s).