B is a typeless, procedural programming language developed by Ken Thompson at Bell Labs around 1969, derived directly from BCPL and used to write early versions of the Unix operating system and its utilities on the PDP-7 and PDP-11 minicomputers. B has no data types beyond the machine word, relying on the programmer to interpret values as integers, characters or addresses as needed. B was extended by Dennis Ritchie into the C programming language in the early 1970s, principally to add data types suited to the PDP-11's byte-addressable hardware, after which B was quickly superseded.
Facts
SignificanceIts typeless design led Thompson and Ritchie to develop an expanded version supporting new internal and user-defined types, which became the C programming language. 1 Partially Attested
First ReleasedSource says B was developed circa 1969. Connections
Preceded By
"BCPL semantics with a lot of SMALGOL syntax" -- Ken Thompson created B by expressing a subset of BCPL semantics in different syntax. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B_(programming_language)
Predecessor Of
C, Programming Languages "The typeless nature of the language was seen as a disadvantage, which led Thompson and Ritchie to develop an expanded version...which became the ubiquitous C programming language." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B_(programming_language)
Sources
1. B (programming language) (Wikipedia)
Lead, first sentence
B is a programming language developed at Bell Labs circa 1969 by Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie.
Infobox, Paradigm
Procedural programming language
Lead, second paragraph
The typeless nature of the language was seen as a disadvantage, which led Thompson and Ritchie to develop an expanded version of the language supporting new internal and user-defined types, which became the ubiquitous C programming language.
View the SourceReader Challenges (0)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.