C++ and Java, say, are presumably growing faster than plain C, but I bet C will still be around.
C++ is a pile of crap.
This evolution may compromise Java's claim of being simpler than C++, but my guess is that the effort will make Java a better language than it is today.
Java and C++ make you think that the new ideas are like the old ones. Java is the most distressing thing to hit computing since MS-DOS.
Now, it's my belief that Python is a lot easier than to teach to students programming and teach them C or C++ or Java at the same time because all the details of the languages are so much harder. Other scripting languages really don't work very well there either.
The central problem of C and C++ is that they require programmers to do their own memory management
C is declining somewhat in usage compared to C++, and maybe Java, but perhaps even more compared to higher-level scripting languages. It's still fairly strong for the basic system-type things.
I made up the term "object-oriented," and I can tell you I did not have C++ in mind.
Java is C++ without the guns, clubs and knives.
Web servers are written in C, and if they're not, they're written in Java or C++, which are C derivatives, or Python or Ruby, which are implemented in C.
The Wesnoth devs are good but not exceptionally so, and we're weighed down by a crappy implementation language (C++). Nevertheless our productivity, in terms of goals achieved per hour of work, is quite high.
C++ is my favorite garbage collected language because it generates so little garbage
After all, C++ isn't a perfect match for Java's design aims either.
C++ is in that inconvenient spot where it doesn't help make things simple enough to be truly usable for prototyping or simple GUI programming, and yet isn't the lean system programming language that C is that actively encourages you to use simple and direct constructs.
C++ is designed to allow you to express ideas, but if you don't have ideas or don't have any clue about how to express them, C++ doesn't offer much help.
C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot; C++ makes it harder, but when you do it blows your whole leg off.
