What Makes a Programming Language Successful?

A popular language is one that allows the programmer to be lazy and sloppy in coding to get the desired result.

A good language is one that requires the programmer to THINK and build very tight and clean code.

Controversial, maybe, but as a former test annalist, I found the first to be too true. They got very upset when I sent them clean solutions to their coding, apparently it wasn't my job...

Exactly! I think it's hard to beat "C".

I can't tel you the number of times I tried to convince those 'so called' architects that C was by far the best choice, I just ended up getting thrown out of meetings and dropped from notification e-mail lists. Then again the only programmers they could get were the ones who could not get work anywhere else.

Here is an example:

http://www.pd.infn.it/~loreti/ootoaster.html

Success comes from designing something easy to use, and also in the case of Computer Programming Languages, powerful at the same time, C wins the prize.

Just think that over 40 years ago, I thought that C was the middle key on the piano.

Kind Regards....