[nine_k]

I'd say that C and C++ were successful despite their being hard to parse, and other unfortunate hacks, like null-terminated strings and include files instead if modules There was little choice for other features they offered (like Unix being written in C and bundling a C compiler) which.were the compelling reason to use them.

JavaScript was a huge success not because it was a great language, but because everyone wanted to write for the browser.

[munificent]

I think you and I are saying essentially the same thing: grammatical complexity seems to have little negative impact on language success.

> There was little choice for other features they offered (like Unix being written in C and bundling a C compiler) which.were the compelling reason to use them.

Pascal was around at the same time, is grammatically infinitely more elegant... and is dead.

[nine_k]

Pascal evolved into Modula-2 and Oberon, which both live on, in significant chunks, fused into the highly successful Go language.

[michaelcampbell]

Shame, too; that was a really fun language.