<div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Dec 23, 2010 at 1:49 AM, Rick Stevens <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:ricks@nerd.com">ricks@nerd.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
I was on the ANSI C committee for a brief time when C was being spec'd<br>
out back in the late '70s and early '80s. Our company was an early<br>
adopter of Whitesmiths' C on Vaxen and PDP-11s. PJ Plaugher of<br>
Whitesmiths was the first secretary of the committee.<br>
<br>
<rumination style="big_grin"><br>
PJ had an interesting take on things. I remember that Whitesmiths<br>
version of the now-standard "atexit()" function was called "onexit()".<br>
When reading the man page, the prototypes for the arguments were really<br>
mucked up. In the "Bugs" section of the manpage, he said, "...the type<br>
definitions defy description and are still wrong." Also, forgetting<br>
the terminating null in the source string used with their "cpystr()"<br>
(now "strcpy()") function was deemed "mildly perilous."<br>
</rumination><br>
<br>
Technically C++ grew out of AT&T Bell Labs' Cfront, which was an OOP<br>
pre-processor for C. The combination of C and Cfront was often referred<br>
to as "C with classes".<br>
<br>
When C++ was first being codified formally it was called "Incremental<br>
C". Since "++" is the C increment operator, the name sort of fell out<br>
serendipitously. First it was cute, then the lightbulb went on with<br>
"Hey, that's a GREAT name for it!" I remember discussions as to whether<br>
a follow-on language would be called "D" or "P" (since the roots of C<br>
are based on the old BCPL language).<br>
<br>
C# is Microsoft's implementation of C++ with some extensions (mostly the<br>
".NET" crud). It is more-or-less compatible to ANSI C++, but not<br>
completely. Microsoft seems to have a horrible aversion to using<br>
industry standards (ADS is a subset of LDAP, for example, but they'll<br>
never say so).<br>
<br>
Q: How many Microsoft engineers does it take to change a lightbulb?<br>
A: None. They redefine darkness as the standard.<br>
<br>
Now, looking at things such as Java...does anyone else remember a rather<br>
noble but failed experiment called "UCSD P-System Pascal", championed by<br>
Nicklaus Wirth in the '80s? Same idea, compile to some bizarre, byte-<br>
code version of the source and have a target-specific interpreter to<br>
act as a virtual machine to execute the byte-code. So Java certainly<br>
isn't revolutionary, or even a very new idea.<br>
<br>
Perhaps P-Systems' failure was due to not having gobs of memory or fast<br>
processors to implement the virtual machine at that time and that Sun<br>
Microsystems wasn't behind it as they were with Java.<br>
<br>
Anyway, that's my contribution to the discussion.<br>
<br>
(donning my flak jacket and flame-retardant suit for the inevitable<br>
missiles that will be hurled in my direction)<br>
----------------------------------------------------------------------<br>
<font color="#888888">- Rick Stevens</font></blockquote></div><br><br>Nice, you also seem to have nice experience.<br><br><br clear="all">-- <br><br>Regards,<br>Parshwa Murdia<br>