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0 pointsdualogy9y ago0 comments

Blurry distinction. C has Unices but so has everything else, other than .NET-before-a-half-mature-Mono and decades-out-of-date historic win/dos-only langs/IDEs/compilers.

So things like momentum/inertia, fewer-stumbling-blocks-on-the-platform, network effects, and critical-mass-tipping-points are still also in diffuse play imho..

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5 comments · 2 top-level

pjmlp9y ago· 2 in thread

Before UNIX became widespread in the industry, C was just yet another language looking for an audience.

reirob9y ago

C was developed to be able to port Unix more easily.

It's interesting to observe that Rust is developed to make Firefox more secure, faster and easier to maintain.

Maybe there is indeed something to the platform analogy for the success programming languages?

pjmlp9y ago

Although pcwalton doesn't agree with me, I believe system languages, based on history of computing, always require a platform for success.

A small example, not all of them became mainstream.

- Burroughs B5500, ESPOL followed by NEWP, nowadays known as Unisys ClearPath

- Xerox Star, Mesa

- UCSD p-System, Pascal

- Constellation OS, Pascal

- Lilith, Modula-2

- Ceres Workstation, Oberon

- Blue Bottle OS (AOS), Active Oberon

- UNIX, C

- Symbian, C++

- BeOS, C++

- NeXT, C and Objective-C

- Windows, C, C++ and .NET

- Mac OS, Object Pascal, C, C++

- OS X, C, Objective-C, Swift

- Android, Java, C++

This is just a tiny sample, I could come up with many more.

This was quite relevant before the widespread of FOSS culture, because we tended to just use/buy the tools of the OS vendor, and most managers wouldn't sign an order to buy yet another expensive compiler just to make some developers happy.

Also languages that aren't first tier on a platform always suffer from integration issues, regarding FFI, tooling with the underlying platform.

Whereas using the OS official languages is just turn the key and go, so to speak.

Rust probably already got its sweet spot with Firefox's adoption and universities that are adopting it for OS classes.

Lets see.

fnord1239y ago· 1 in thread

>C has Unices but so has everything else

Most runtimes aren't making syscalls directly. They go through glibc, musl, etc. So the're going through C to get to the Unices. In otherwords, they don't have Unices: they have C.

>So things like ...

Sure. But fundamentally the network effects and critical mass tipping are predicated on the value of the platform, not the value of the language. The platform is the primary component. Otherwise, how could Javascript become so popular? Or Visual Basic? Or Emacs Lisp? Or R? They're all ostensibly warty languages but they carry on through the fantastic and very valuable platform they give access to.

To adapt a cliche from politics: "It's the platform, stupid."

Firefox is not a platform. It can be a great public works project to demonstrate the power of Rust. But there's nothing sticky or network effectful of Firefox using Rust.

dualogyOP9y ago

> Most runtimes aren't making syscalls directly. They go through glibc, musl, etc. So the're going through C to get to the Unices. In otherwords, they don't have Unices: they have C.

Good point, that!

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