Re: C History (was: null terminated strings)

Hi Tom,

I liked it all except for this bit: -
1998 - Realizing that the applet thing is fading fast, Sun repositions
Java again, this time as a server language. They steal the design of
Microsoft Transaction Server and convince everyone to pretend they
created the design.

No mention of MTS/DTC stealing the design from DECdtm?

Cheers Richard Maher

"Tom Linden" <tom@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:ops4gblwiyzgicya@xxxxxxxxxxxx
(Courtesy Thor Olson)

History of the C family of languages

1972 - The precursor to C, the language B, is developed at Bell Labs.
The B language is fast, easy to maintain, and useful for all kinds of
development from systems to applications. The entire team that designed
the language is immediately fired for behavior unbefitting a telephone
company employee, and the project is handed to Dennis Ritchie. He alters
the language to be incomprehensible, difficult to maintain, and only
useful for systems development. He also designs in a pointer system
guaranteed to give every program over 500 lines a pointer into the
operating system.

1982 - It is discovered that 97% of all C routine calls are subject to
buffer overrun exploits. C programmers begin to realize that
initializing a variable to whatever happens to be lying around in memory
is not necessarily a good idea. However, since enforcing sensible
variable initialization would break 97% of all C programs in existence,
nothing is done about it.

1984 - The number of operating systems bad pointers can get to has been
dramatically increased.

1985 - A variant of C with object oriented capabilities, called C With
Classes, is ready to go commercial. However, the name C With Classes is
considered too clear and easy for outsiders to understand, so the
commercial version is called C++.

1986 - C becomes so popular that industry analysts recommend writing
business applications in it. They argue that applications written in C
will be portable to many different systems. Many of these industry
analysts are suspected of being under the influence of hallucinogens.

1988 - Industry analysts finally run out of LSD. After their
hallucinations fade, they notice that business apps written in C take
five times longer to produce, and are still not portable. They stop
recommending that business apps be written in C, except for a minority
that switch to crack cocaine and start recommending business apps be
written in C++ because "object orientation will result in code reuse".

1990 - By this time, all C compilers have turned into C++ compilers.
But, since most C++ programs do not use any of the object oriented
features of the language, this means in practical terms that bloated
code structures with pointers into the operating system are now being
compiled with an object-oriented compiler.

1990 - After hiring some industry analysts that switched from crack to
sniffing glue, Sun decides to create a language called Oak to program
set-top television boxes. Since all their programmers have had stilted C
syntax imprinted into their DNA by this time, the new language borrows
heavily from C and C++ syntax. However the set-top boxes don't have an
operating system for bad pointers to get to, so pointers are eliminated
from the language.

1994 - Someone at Sun finally realizes what a stupid idea it was to
develop a special language just for set-top television boxes. The
language is renamed Java and repositioned as an "Internet" language that
is supposed to be portable to many platforms. This works well as a
marketing campaign, since less than 3% of people in the industry at this
time realize what the Internet is, and since hallucinating industry
analysts continue to be suckers for the mythical idea of "portability to
different platforms".

1995 - Sun offers free psychedelic mushrooms to industry analysts, who
immediately start writing articles about how Java is the future of
programming because of its portability and integration with the
Internet.

Mid 1996 - 17,468,972 articles appear about how Java is the future of
programming. The age of Java applets in web pages begins.

Late 1996 - Programmers trying to produce actual web pages with applets
that really work commit mass suicide out of frustration and depression.
Industry analysts increase their dosage of hallucinogens to compensate.

1997 - Taking the advice of hallucinating industry analysts, Corel
decides to rewrite all their applications, including WordPerfect, in
Java. The end result is the first known word processor that is slower to
use than a typewriter.

1998 - Realizing that the applet thing is fading fast, Sun repositions
Java again, this time as a server language. They steal the design of
Microsoft Transaction Server and convince everyone to pretend they
created the design.

1999 - Java 2 Enterprise Edition is introduced to the rave reviews of
drunk and stoned industry analysts. 21,499,512 articles are written
about it, but no one actually uses it because it's immature and
expensive.

2000 - J2EE finally works, sort of. Just about the time all the Java
vendors are ready to start making money on it, Microsoft announces .NET,
which includes almost all the features of J2EE except the outrageous
cost. In fact, Microsoft decides to give .NET away free for Windows
users. Scott McNealy is so outraged he files another irrational lawsuit
against Microsoft.

.NET includes a new C-family language, C#, pronounced "C-pound",
continuing the tradition of languages in this family having stupid
names.

2001 - Microsoft's marketing department realizes that no one in
marketing has ever talked to a live Microsoft product developer. They
have lunch with one and discover that the pronunciation is actually
supposed to be "C sharp".

2002 - C# is introduced as part of the release version of Microsoft
.NET. C++ developers on the Microsoft platform rejoice over the concept
of "managed code", which means they finally receive the same automatic
memory management features that Visual Basic has had since 1991 and Java
has had since 1995.

copyright (C) 1996-2006 by Billy S. Hollis, originally posted on
dotnetmasters.com 13 January 2006
Please do not remove this copyright message


.

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