From: bonzini@gnu.org   
      
   > During the whole   
   > 1980s, our professors at University made their disregard for C public   
   > ("C is only a portable assembler"). Modula 2 was the language of the   
   > 1980s (at least here in Europe).   
      
   Indeed, when I started university in Italy (1998), Modula-2 was still   
   taught as your "first programming language".  C was not disregarded as   
   a portable assembler, but it was indeed taught as a "dirty" language   
   and only introduced in the second year.   
      
   > The one single reason that I saw (at that   
   > time) was Microsoft choosing C and not Pascal as the language they   
   > used to re-write MS-DOS 3.x (which was implemented in 8086 assembler   
   > until then).   
      
   They had been using C for Windows since 1985 (while Mac OS was   
   Pascal-based, IIRC).   
      
   Paolo   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)