C
C
C is a programming language created in the early 1970s by Dennis Ritchie at Bell Labs. It was originally designed to implement the Unix operating system, but quickly grew beyond that role. Even today, C is often called the "mother of modern programming languages" because of its lasting influence.
History
- 1969: Early Unix was written in assembly language.
- 1972: Dennis Ritchie developed C, building on the B language.
- 1978: Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie published The C Programming Language (K&R C), which became the de facto reference.
- Later standardized by ANSI and ISO, with revisions continuing to this day.
Key features
C is known for:
- Concise syntax and expressive power
- Low-level memory access (pointers)
- Portability across hardware platforms
- Standard library providing I/O, string handling, math, and more
Example
The classic "Hello, World!" program:
#include <stdio.h>
int main(void) {
printf("Hello, World!\n");
return 0;
}
Though simple, this snippet shows the essence of C: `#include` pulls in libraries, and `main` is the entry point of execution.
Applications
C remains in use across many fields:
- Operating systems (Unix, Linux, parts of Windows)
- Embedded systems (IoT, microcontrollers, consumer electronics)
- Network software and database engines
- Implementations of other languages (Python, Lua, Ruby have C cores)
See also
References
- Dennis M. Ritchie & Brian W. Kernighan, The C Programming Language (1978).
- ISO/IEC 9899:2018 C Standard.