Two points in response. Then I'm done. You can have the last word if you want it (and if you're still reading this, this long after the initial post.)
First, "such a project seemed hopelessly large for our resources: much simpler and smaller tools were called for." This actually is what I was arguing - you could do things (like write or port an OS) with a much smaller group, which opened doors that were closed by more "advanced" tools/languages. The barriers to entry were lower, so lot more people were able to do a lot more things. There was massive value in that.
Second, it's not like the legislature made it illegal to work on all these other approaches. They were abandoned because the people working on them abandoned them. Nobody put a gun to their head.
This kind of goes back to the first point. C opened a lot of doors. Research stopped in some directions, because new areas opened up that people found more interesting.
In fact, this whole thing has a bit of a flavor of the elites mourning because the common people can now read and write, and are deciding what they're going to read and write, and it's not what the elites think they should. You (and the people you quote) are the elites that the people left behind. You think that yours is the right path; but the people disagree, and they don't care what you think.
(The point about hardware from 1958 being less than a PDP11 I will concede.)
First, "such a project seemed hopelessly large for our resources: much simpler and smaller tools were called for." This actually is what I was arguing - you could do things (like write or port an OS) with a much smaller group, which opened doors that were closed by more "advanced" tools/languages. The barriers to entry were lower, so lot more people were able to do a lot more things. There was massive value in that.
Second, it's not like the legislature made it illegal to work on all these other approaches. They were abandoned because the people working on them abandoned them. Nobody put a gun to their head.
This kind of goes back to the first point. C opened a lot of doors. Research stopped in some directions, because new areas opened up that people found more interesting.
In fact, this whole thing has a bit of a flavor of the elites mourning because the common people can now read and write, and are deciding what they're going to read and write, and it's not what the elites think they should. You (and the people you quote) are the elites that the people left behind. You think that yours is the right path; but the people disagree, and they don't care what you think.
(The point about hardware from 1958 being less than a PDP11 I will concede.)