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Comment by coliveira | Hacker News Reader

C and Unix have stood the test of time. It has been 50 years since they were designed, this is a long time in terms on computing. It is not unreasonable to think that they will stay for another 50 years.

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Yes, they SHOULD be adding Fortran, another language that has stood the test of time, to the Linux kernel.

Or... Maybe it's good that they add a new (still 10 years old) language with security and DX improvements occasionally. 50 years ago, that language was C...

Adding languages is plainly a bad idea. Migrating to a different language might make sense at a time but IMO rust is still too young to consider that.

How many operating systems are written in FORTRAN and still widely used?

If other, safer language would have existed the same time as C, I don’t think it would have stood the time as you say.

that's just hindsight. You can also argue the same for the dvorak keyboard vs qwerty. And yet, qwerty stood the test of time.

Momentum and legacy is hard to displace, when the new fangled thing attemping to be an improvement is not proven, and has unknown unknowns.

> that's just hindsight.

Is it? Do you think it's hindsight to use the only "successful" story as "the only way forward?" Look at the gas vs electric vehicles. Yes, displacing legacy is hard but not insurmountable when there is a clear improvement. I don't think anyone can argue in good faith the Rust is NOT an improvement in C.

Electric vehicles are also not a clear improvement over combustion engines. Which is why they need to be forced into use.

They did. But they were disregarded.

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