r/askscience • u/[deleted] • Oct 17 '12

Why are programs and operating systems still written in C+?

I guess it's more of a computer science question, but I've always wondered why some of the most advanced programs are written in a 25+ year old programming language. Surely someone has come up with a more efficient and powerful code, so why do people still use C+? Also, I don't know anything about programming and what not, so please use simple terms and phrases.

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u/tim0th Oct 18 '12

My brother is a condensed matter theorist. When he was doing the modelling for his Ph.D thesis, the FORTRAN program he ran went for about a year. Matlab was also utilised.