[qalmakka]

> C is the natural language for exposing Unix system calls

No, C is the language _designed_ to write UNIX. Unix is older than C, C was designed to write it and that's why all UNIX APIs follow C conventions. It's obvious that when you design something for a system it will have its best APIs in the language the system is written in.

C has also multiple weird and quirky APIs that suck, especially in the ISO C libc.

[pajko]

Here, this is not C: https://github.com/jserv/unix-v1/blob/master/src/lib/open.s

[ajross]

>> C is the natural language for exposing Unix system calls

> No, C is the language _designed_ to write UNIX. [...]

This is one of those hilarious situations where internet discussion goes off the rails. Everything you wrote, to the last word, would carry the same meaning and the same benefit to the discussion had you written "Yes" instead of "No" as the first word.

Literally you're agreeing with me, but phrasing it as a disagreement only because you feel I left something out.

[benj111]

If I write an OS in Basic, surely the 'natural' language for exposing the system calls is Basic?

Yes Unix predates C. But at this point in time 50+ years down the road, where the majority on nix users don't use anything that ever contained that code, and the minority use a nix that has been thoroughly ship of Theseused, Unix is to all intents and purposes a C operating system.

[qalmakka]

> If I write an OS in Basic, surely the 'natural' language for exposing the system calls is Basic?

For that specific OS, that would probably be the case? I think every API is bound to reflect the specific constraints of the language it has been written in. What I was trying to clarify was that UNIX and C are intertwined in an especially deep way, more than basically other OS that doesn't have a UNIX API, because both were born and written alongside each other, so some Unix APIs rely on C-specific behaviour and quirks and some C features were born and designed around the same historical context UNIX was born