Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!gatech!hao!ames!rutgers!cbmvax!snark!eric
From: eric@snark.UUCP (Eric S. Raymond)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: C critisisms
Message-ID: <145@snark.UUCP>
Date: 4 Jan 88 15:54:14 GMT
References: <11075@brl-adm.ARPA>
Organization: Thyrsus Enterprises, Malvern PA 19355
Lines: 19
Summary: MISINFORMATION ALERT!

In article <7597@sunybcs.UUCP>, ugfailau@joey.UUCP (Fai Lau) writes:
>	C stands for Compact, I think, referring to the nature of
>the language. Considering the UN*X philophy in naming system
>utilities, it is not surpprising that the name has been
>consisting of one alphabet.

Grrr...if you don't know the answer, don't bloody make one up!

The name 'C' was assigned because the original DMR compiler on the PDP-11 was
written as the successor to an interpreted language called 'B' that Ritchie
had been hacking with on the original PDP-7 proto-Unix. B, in turn, was so
called because it was a stripped-to-the-running-gears version of BCPL
(aka British Common Programming Language), a typeless Algol-descended
language developed for systems programming in the mid-60s in England.

-- 
      Eric S. Raymond
      UUCP:  {{seismo,ihnp4,rutgers}!cbmvax,sdcrdcf!burdvax,vu-vlsi}!snark!eric
      Post:  22 South Warren Avenue, Malvern, PA 19355    Phone: (215)-296-5718