History of C (Re: Why do you use a devil as a mascot?)

[perryh at pluto.rain.com]

Chad Perrin <perrin at apotheon.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 13, 2010 at 02:32:04PM -0600, Robert Bonomi wrote:
> > should the one-leter name for 'c++' be 'd' or 'p'?
> > (nobody could decide/agree, which *IS* why it is 'c++'
> > to this day)
>
> ... D is already another programming language ...

It wasn't back then :)

> I don't know what this P has to do with it.

You have revealed yourself as a newbie :)

In the beginning there was CPL, the "Combined Programming Language."
It was large enough to be infeasible to implement using then-current
technologies, so the "Bootstrap Combined Programming Language" (BCPL)
was invented, with the intent that the first CPL compiler would be
written in BCPL.

CPL never amounted to much -- I don't know whether it was ever
implemented at all -- but BCPL developed a following.  Someone
(at Bell Labs?) produced a derivative called B, from which a few
researchers at Murray Hill derived C.  Thus the question:  should
the next language in the series be named D (next alphabetically)
or P (next letter of BCPL)?