[pjmlp]

> The composition of programs through pipes remains a brilliant idea, and an extremely effective way to get a job done

Except pipes were already present in another operating systems at the time, http://cm.bell-labs.com/who/dmr/hist.html

> C is still a remarkably popular programming language, and it has proven surprisingly hard to invent a new language that's better than C in every respect.

In 70's already had a few system programming languages better than C in every respect, safety, modularization, thread support, low level programming, you name it.

C's widespread into the industry is a consequence of UNIX adoption by the industry.