What is C Language

What is C Language

  Dennis Ritche: Father of 'C' Language

 '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.

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 application programs have been written in C. 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

Facts about C

• C was invented to write an operating system called UNIX.
• C is a successor of B language which was introduced around the early 1970s.
• The language was formalized in 1988 by the American National Standard Institute (ANSI).
• The UNIX OS was totally written in C.
• Today C is the most widely used and popular System Programming Language.
• Most of the state-of-the-art software have been implemented using C.
• Today's most popular Linux OS and RDBMS MySQL have been written in C.

Why we use C?

C was initially used for system development work, particularly 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 the 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

Fun Thing

C was named well "C", because most of it's features are derived from the "B" Language.BCPL and CPL are the earlier ancestors of B Language.

• Posted by SampathRaja