Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2010 01:00:35 -0800 From: perryh@pluto.rain.com To: perrin@apotheon.com Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: History of C (Re: Why do you use a devil as a mascot?) Message-ID: <4cdfa533.KmbS7pHvQ3h%2BK92G%perryh@pluto.rain.com> In-Reply-To: <20101113220559.GE45921@guilt.hydra> References: <201011132032.oADKW4FG025920@mail.r-bonomi.com> <20101113220559.GE45921@guilt.hydra>
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Chad Perrin <perrin@apotheon.com> wrote: > On Sat, Nov 13, 2010 at 02:32:04PM -0600, Robert Bonomi wrote: > > should the one-leter name for 'c++' be 'd' or 'p'? > > (nobody could decide/agree, which *IS* why it is 'c++' > > to this day) > > ... D is already another programming language ... It wasn't back then :) > I don't know what this P has to do with it. You have revealed yourself as a newbie :) In the beginning there was CPL, the "Combined Programming Language." It was large enough to be infeasible to implement using then-current technologies, so the "Bootstrap Combined Programming Language" (BCPL) was invented, with the intent that the first CPL compiler would be written in BCPL. CPL never amounted to much -- I don't know whether it was ever implemented at all -- but BCPL developed a following. Someone (at Bell Labs?) produced a derivative called B, from which a few researchers at Murray Hill derived C. Thus the question: should the next language in the series be named D (next alphabetically) or P (next letter of BCPL)?
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