[max_k]

> The UNIX model won over object approaches.

That's funny interpretation, because what is this mysterious "UNIX model" and what does it have to do with implementation language?

Also, C++ used to be "C with classes", but has outgrown this single-paradigm thing quite quickly. I do a lot of C++, but I rarely use inheritance and virtual methods. These are not the features that make C++ worthwile for me.

> The simplicity of flat memory model, [C], a unified file interface

This "unified file interface" is a nice theoretical idea, and it leaks many nice things to the real world, but has nothing to do with the implementation language - quite contrary, it allows many different languages to communicate. Similar with "flat memory model" - you can have either language in segmented memory and flat memory. There used to be "far pointers" in both C and C++, and now they're gone, so what.

> If C++ were actually better for engineering large systems, GNU wouldn't have had a chance.

Oh, if only it were that way, if only inferior engineering systems would just lose and disappear. The sad truth is that survival of a language proves little about quality.

If you believe C is better than C++, fine by me, just opinions. You can say "C++ is bad because it's more complex" or "has too many features", I can understand that, or "C++ is confusing because you can overload operators". My features are your bugs, okay. But I can't comprehend your actual arguments because they are orthogonal to the choice of language.

[uecker]

The comment I was responding to talked about the rise of GNU which allegedly killed better systems that used C++. I argue that GNU won because it was a better system and that it used C and not C++ is one part which made it better. Unified file interfaces are another. You are exactly right that it lets different system communicate, including C++. But this is what makes such interfaces better than - say - an object-oriented interfaces accessed via remote procedure call (and were/are plenty of such systems), which do not interoperate well. Systems built around C++ or with a similar mindset typically tend to have overly complicated interfaces. So yes, one can use simple interfaces with C++. But if you think C++ is a good language, you will likely not define simple interfaces.