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From: Eric Smith <eric-no-spam-for-me@brouhaha.com>
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Subject: "improvement on successors" (was Re: No DOS in WinXP???)
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Date: 01 Feb 2002 15:36:22 -0800
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"Charlie Gibbs" <cgibbs@sky.bus.com> writes:
> I like it.  It's akin to that other delightful phrase I've read
> on this newsgroup: "<foo> is an improvement on its successor."
> (The PC-Anywhere user interface is a good candidate for this one.)

Earliest such statement I know of:

    The more I ponder the principles of language design, and the techniques
    which put them into practice, the more is my amazement and admiration of
    ALGOL 60. Here is a language so far ahead of its time, that it was not
    only an improvement on its predecessors, but also on nearly all its
    successors.

          -- C.A.R. Hoare, "Hints on programming language design", 1974

AFAICT, that was the inspiration for all the later sayings of that form.