C question

is a byte with all zeros equivalent to the integer value (signed or unsigned) zero, in terms of portability?

Such that, is memset(&i, 0, sizeof(int)); equivalent to i = 0;?

>>24
What were some of these ``better languages" that were replaced by C?

>>28
Pascal is a teaching language, that wasn't standardized or given a proper set of features (like arrays of arbitrary size) until it was too late. Ada is basically a forced meme by the DOD, and sees very little use for application development. Microsoft, Borland, GNU, Watcom, and Digital Mars all make C compilers, but only ONE of them makes an Ada compiler, and that was an afterthought if anything. And C was both a systems and applications language in the 70s or 80s, it was in fact TOO HIGH LEVEL to be used on 8-bit microcomputers. It only fell behind as an applications language once OOP came onto the scene.