> The problem is that Scheme and C were both trying to solve the 'decent high-level language' problem, but since C came out first, fewer people cared about Scheme when it eventually came out. In the mean time they'd moved on to tackling the 'null pointer dereference in C problem', the 'buffer overflow in C' problem, the 'unterminated strings in C' problem, and so on. Even though Scheme doesn't have these problems, it also doesn't solve them "in C", so it was too difficult to switch to.
C is quite odd in that the programmer is expected to pay dearly for their mistakes, rather than be protected from them. BTW it wouldn't be as much fun if they were protected.
Regarding Scheme, it has withstood the test of nearly forty years very well.
C is unique because it's really easy to mentally compile C code into assembler. Scheme is more "magical".
The more I learn about assembler, the more I appreciate how C deals with dirty work like calling conventions, register allocation, and computing struct member offsets, while still giving you control of the machine.
On the other hand, some processor primitives like carry bits are annoyingly absent from the C language.
C is quite odd in that the programmer is expected to pay dearly for their mistakes, rather than be protected from them. BTW it wouldn't be as much fun if they were protected.
Regarding Scheme, it has withstood the test of nearly forty years very well.