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From: firth@sei.cmu.edu (Robert Firth)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: The history of C (was Re: C critisisms)
Message-ID: <3879@aw.sei.cmu.edu>
Date: 21 Jan 88 17:57:49 GMT
References: <11075@brl-adm.ARPA> <145@snark.UUCP> <881@micomvax.UUCP> <250@pedsga.UUCP> <351@genghis.UUCP>
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In article <351@genghis.UUCP> sns@genghis.UUCP (Sam Southard) writes:

>You mean that in 42 BC they called it simply 42?  And in 12 BC they called it
>simply 12?  How did they pick when to place the 0?  And why did they count
>backwards? :)

There is no year 0.  1BC was followed by 1AD.  This is because the Romans
hadn't yet discovered the number zero.  In fact, one of the main causes
of the fall of the Roman Empire was that, lacking zero, they had no way
to indicate successful termination of their C programs.

Now can we get back to inventing symbols for "autodecrement, raise to an
integer power, and return the number you first thought of"?