ix222 (12/28/82)
Anyone care to speak up and tell how how everyone's favorite programming language came to be named 'c' and not, say, 'a' 'b' 'd' or 'codfish'? could be a story here... --steve serocki --ucbvax;sdcsvax;sdccsu3;ix222
dwl (12/29/82)
I seem to recall having read somewhere that C was derived from a language named B, which was, in turn, derived from a language called BCPL. Perhaps the next language in the family will be named P. Or should it be D? -Dave Levenson -BTL Holmdel
rbk (12/31/82)
My understanding on the origin of the name "C" goes as follows: Once uppon a time there was an interpreted(?) language called BCPL (I think Basic Computer Programming Language). At some point someone created a version called B that was compiled(?). B is the pre-cursor to C, and was "typeless" (or so; had only int). This was picked up by Ritchie and turned into C, for purposes of turning everybodies favorite OS into a HLL (sort of) portable non-asm version. C has evolved for some time now, so it's not clear if we'll ever be programming in "P" or "L". Much of this (ie, all) is based on rumor/speculation/etc. I've never seen a spec for BCPL or B and haven't any idea by whom or why or when they were created. Bob Beck Intel