

Why has C prevailed over Pascal? - riyadparvez
http://programmers.stackexchange.com/q/114846/19141

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lutusp
> Why has C prevailed over Pascal?

A combination of factors beyond those cited in the linked discussion:

1\. C was closer to the machine, less abstract, at a time when abstraction was
more expensive than it is now.

2\. You could weave C and assembly together in the same program, developing
under the same compiler, making it possible for an assembly-language
programmer to migrate to C in small increments.

3\. Pascal was strict when strictness cost more than it does now.

4\. Pascal had much more overhead than C did, both in development and in
operation, at a time when a typical machine had very little memory or storage
space.

5\. C had more documentation available, and more users to consult, than
Pascal.

So overall one might say "momentum" was the reason.

I can remember in the early days at Apple (around 1980) loading Pascal into an
Apple II using floppy disks -- three or more, as I recall, each read
completely -- and thinking how Pascal had better be pretty wonderful to
justify all that effort. And it wasn't.

