[kmavm]

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.

[arethuza]

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.