While true, I think the rise of Linux and FOSS, alongside embedded development helped C stay around.<p>On Mac OS, Windows, Symbian, BeOS, even commercial UNIX with CORBA and Motif OO libraries, developers were already transitioning from C to C++ when Linux and FOSS, which depend heavily on C, started to gain adoption.<p>Then you have the embedded space, specially with micro-controlers, where even packing C into the EPROM is already an exercise.<p>As for C++, the new standards rely reinvigorated it, with Apple, Google and Microsoft pushing it forward.<p>One of the reasons I updated to Windows 8 (now on W10) was to be able to use C++&#x2F;CX with XAML. Visual C++ finally catched up with C++ Builder in terms of RAD experience.<p>This where I see Rust still needs to grow. There are lots of use cases where Rust still does not provide an out-of-the-box solution vs C++ tooling does.