[comp.lang.c] C History

hp@vmars.tuwien.ac.at (Peter Holzer) (10/30/90)

brnstnd@kramden.acf.nyu.edu (Dan Bernstein) writes:

>I don't think I've ever used an enum. Why not? Because they aren't in
>the language I think of as C. The result? My code is more portable.
>Would this be true if I used H&S as a reference? I doubt it.

What is "the language you think of as C"? 
The first compiler implemented by Ritchie? K&R1 (There are several
editions of it as I understand. The German translation was done in
1983, and it covers structure assignments and enums, but the English
version of 1978 we have doesn't)? The implementation on the machine
you are currently working on? ANSI C? GNU C?

C is an evolving language and this leads me to my question:
Can anyone give a history of the development of C? 
Something like :

Feature		Devised in		Used by most compilers
--------------------------------------------------------------
C		1970			1970 
typedef		1973			1975
struct 
assignment	1978			1982
Prototypes	1986			1990
const,volatile	1986			1995 :-)
ANSI standard	1990			never :-)

Of course the numbers I gave are just raw guesses. I first heard
of C in 1984, learned it in 1986 and have been reading comp.lang.c
for 2 years, so I really don't know much about what happened in
20 years of C.

--
|    _  | Peter J. Holzer                       | Think of it   |
| |_|_) | Technical University Vienna           | as evolution  |
| | |   | Dept. for Real-Time Systems           | in action!    |
| __/   | hp@vmars.tuwien.ac.at                 |     Tony Rand |

brnstnd@kramden.acf.nyu.edu (Dan Bernstein) (10/31/90)

In article <1931@tuvie> hp@vmars.tuwien.ac.at (Peter Holzer) writes:
> >I don't think I've ever used an enum. Why not? Because they aren't in
> >the language I think of as C. The result? My code is more portable.
> >Would this be true if I used H&S as a reference? I doubt it.
> What is "the language you think of as C"? 

The original K&R.

> C is an evolving language and this leads me to my question:
> Can anyone give a history of the development of C? 

The standard has a bit of history. What I'd like to see is a tree (well,
DAG) showing the evolution of C compilers, mainframe and otherwise. It'd
give people a much better appreciation of the influence of pcc, etc.

---Dan