Yeah everyone seems to rag on C for being ancient. They don't realize that, in 1990, writing a kernel in C was an huge improvement over assembly language! And it still is today -- there's really no other option.
If your only other choice is assembly language, then C starts to look really good. You don't complain about weird function interfaces, because at least you have functions!
The original NT graphics code was in newfangled C++. The books goes into detail on the time lost teaching the team C++, and that they should have stuck with C. ;)
If your only other choice is assembly language, then C starts to look really good. You don't complain about weird function interfaces, because at least you have functions!