Why are C, C++, and LISP so prevalent in embedded devices and robots?

Question

It seems that the software language skills most sought for embedded devices and robots are C, C++, and LISP. Why haven\'t more recent languages made inroads into these applicat

Answer 1

I just read some introductory Erlang materials and one of the first things they said was that Erlang was suitable for "Soft" real-time control. This is not something that I would want in any robot near me.

In addition I would say that robots (as in industrial) currently have no real need for hot swapped code. They are working on a piece basis and there will always be scheduled downtime to reload code at an appropriate moment - which of course is well tested in an offline unit.