The specifics of C’s design could barely be less important. In the 70s it was one of countless ALGOL derivatives churned out on-demand to support R&D projects like Unix.
Unix succeeded, but it could have been written in any of these languages. The C design process was governed by the difficulty of compiler implementation; everyone was copying ALGOL 68 but some of the features took too long to implement. If Dennis Ritchie had an extra free weekend in 1972, C might have a module system. But he didn’t, so it doesn’t.
The specifics of C’s design could barely be less important. In the 70s it was one of countless ALGOL derivatives churned out on-demand to support R&D projects like Unix.
Unix succeeded, but it could have been written in any of these languages. The C design process was governed by the difficulty of compiler implementation; everyone was copying ALGOL 68 but some of the features took too long to implement. If Dennis Ritchie had an extra free weekend in 1972, C might have a module system. But he didn’t, so it doesn’t.