C is a general-purpose, high-level language that was originally developed by Dennis M. Ritchie to develop the UNIX operating system at Bell Labs. C was originally first implemented on the DEC PDP-11 computer in 1972. The C is the most widely used computer language
In 1978, Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie produced the first publicly available description of C, now known as the K&R standard.
The UNIX operating system, the C compiler, and essentially all UNIX applications programs have been written in C. The C has now become a widely used professional language for various reasons.
- Easy to learn
- Structured language
- It produces efficient programs.
- It can handle low-level activities.
- It can be compiled on a variety of computer platforms.
C language has evolved from three different structured language ALGOL, BCPL and B by Dennis Ritchie. It uses many concepts from these languages and introduced many new concepts such as data types, struct, pointer. In 1988, the language was formalised by American National Standard Institute(ANSI).In 1990, a version of C language was approved by the International Standard Organisation(ISO) and that version of C is also referred to as C89.
Facts about c
- C was invented to write an operating system called UNIX.
- C is a successor of B language which was introduced around 1970
- The language was formalized in 1988 by the American National Standard Institute (ANSI).
- The UNIX OS was totally written in C by 1973.
- Today C is the most widely used and popular System Programming Language.
- Most of the state-of-the-art softwares have been implemented using C.
- Today's most popular Linux OS and RBDMS MySQL have been written in C.
Why to use c?
C was initially used for system development work, in particular the programs that make-up the operating system. C was adopted as a system development language because it produces code that runs nearly as fast as code written in assembly language. Some examples of the use of C might be:
- Operating Systems
- Language Compilers
- Assemblers
- Text Editors
- Print Spoolers
- Network Drivers
- Modern Programs
- Databases
- Language Interpreters
- Utilities