Re: How is this possible?
The pdp-11, it is a holy machine, which lay the foundation of the world we know today.
People forget that Unix is based on the 80/20 philosophy, if it solves 80% it is good enough, since the remaining 20% will be 80% more work. C is exactly this, an elegant 3GL, light, generic enough to be easily translated into machine instructions on a wide range of differing machine architectures. Even when many C constructs can be 1:1 translated into PDP-11 machine instructions, it enabled Unix to be ported on virtual every CPU which was 16 bits or more since the mid 70's. Which is still a great feature compared to, commercially more successful, competitors who are welded to the x64 architecture. The absence of language constructs requiring insertion of huge amounts of monkey proofing code kept programs small, reduced disk and memory footprint, allowing more flexibility and speed. Anyone who takes some time to study CVE databases will find out quickly that an alternative OS written in proprietary Visual C++ and 32-bit 386 machine code, does have more security flaws. In short, K+R C rocks.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
