Gerhard Fiedler wrote:
> Turbo Pascal was very popular. At some point, it probably was the most
> popular development environment on CP/M and MS-DOS. I think the main
> reason why it didn't "take over" like C was the lack of standardization
> and the proliferation of dialects.

Neither of those reasons make sense.  Turbo Pascal was a single language
that was well defined.  There were no dialects.

I think the reasons C eventually dominated were because there were several
free or low cost C compilers out there for a wide range of systems, it
tagged along with the rise of Unix, and there were (even more than today) a
large group of programmers lacking the maturity, discipline, and experience
to see the advantages of a tightly typed language like Pascal.

"Hacker" meant a different thing back then and was sortof a honorary title.
Unfortunately it also included connotations of writing what we now call bad
code, flagrant misuse of data typing, and using all manner of cutesy tricks
that were a side effect of the language syntax.  It was actually cool to
write tiny maximally obfuscated programs.  C is the perfect language for
this, and I think this had some influece over the rise of C.

Eventually C got past the critical mass stage where you had to use it.  I
think we all agree that's where we are today.  All my point is that while we
may be forced to use C today, we should complain about it whenever possible.
Changing the world won't be easy or quick, but it can't happen until we
start to try.


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