I am similarly puzzled at the implication that C++ was obscure prior to Boost, given that C++ was pretty well entrenched in both industry and academia by the time work on Boost began in 1998.
I want to add that he was just the first guy that popped into my head when I thought C. I questioned it at first too, but the more I thought about it, Linux itself could have just as well have been written in Pascal or Lisp. If it had been, perhaps a lot of the tools, drivers, etc that interact with Linux would've been written in that language as well?
C was never obscure in the way that Haskell is now and C++ once was. It was popularized by the project for which it was invented: UNIX, of which Linux is a two-decades-late clone. C's prevalence has always been closely tied to that of UNIX.
Not sure about that - I seem to remember reading some stuff from the mid/late seventies that was pretty skeptical about the whole idea of using a comparatively high level language for OS development.
Similarly, I don't think C++ was ever obscure in that it was widely publicized as the "next" C and people were pretty keen to use it - it was more that the early tools for C++ failed to live up to the initial promise.
Let's not fixate on the examples, folks. Perhaps they're arguable, but the original point is still valid: languages gain traction through prominent projects.
Yeah, let's take a position in a discussion, defend it by examples (a questionable tactic, but let's roll with it for now), and then when someone picks apart the examples say 'let's not fixate on the examples, folks'?
(not attacking the OP, I'm not convinced yet one way or the other on the topic, just saying that when someone is called on his arguments and methodology the refutation in an intellectually honest discussion shouldn't be vigorous hand waiving).