[comp.lang.misc] What makes a language popular?

amos@nsta.UUCP (Amos Shapir) (08/12/87)

It seems that  support, rather than a written standard,  is what makes a
language 'standard'.  If a language  is to  be kept from  diverging into
many different dialects, someone has to do the keeping - there should be
a central  location for gripes, updates,  etc. Just compare the  fate of
Ada, C and  Modula-2 that have such caretakers, vs.  Fortran, Pascal and
Basic that do not, even though the latter have ANSI or ISO standards.

-- 
	Amos Shapir			(My other cpu is a NS32532)
National Semiconductor (Israel)
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