Programming in C
C is a computer programming language, developed by Dennis Ritchie in 1972 at AT & T Bell laboratory in USA.
Programming Language is a Computer Language designed to communicate with a machine, particularly a computer. Programming languages can be used to create programs to control the behaviour of a machine.
The C Language is developed for creating system applications that direct interacts to the hardware devices such as drivers, kernels etc.
C programming is considered as the base for other programming languages, that is why it is known as mother language or System programming language or Procedure-oriented programming language.
There are several reasons why 'C is so popular'? Some of the reasons are listed below:
- C is reliable, simple and easy to use.
- Learning C++, Java, C#, or any other advance language is difficult without knowing the concept of C-Language.
- Major parts of operating systems like Windows, UNIX, Linux is still written in C.
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C is widely used for systems programming in implementing operating systems and embedded system applications, because C code is portable, can be used for most purposes, system-specific code can be used to access specific hardware addresses.
C can also be used for website programming using CGI as a "gateway" for information between the Web application, and the browser. C is often chosen over interpreted languages because of its speed, stability, and universal availability.
Because the layer of abstraction is thin and the overhead is low, C enables programmers to create efficient implementations of algorithms and data structures, useful for computationally intense programs. For example, the GNU Multiple Precision Arithmetic Library, the GNU Scientific Library, Mathematica, and MATLAB are completely or partially written in C.
C has also been widely used to implement end-user applications. However, such applications can also be written in newer, higher-level languages.
When object-oriented languages became popular, C++ and Objective-C were two different extensions of C that provided object-oriented capabilities. Both languages were originally implemented as source-to-source compilers; source code was translated into C, and then compiled with a C compiler.
The C++ programming language was devised as an approach to providing object-oriented functionality with a C-like syntax. C++ adds greater typing strength, scoping, and other tools useful in object-oriented programming, and permits generic programming via templates. Nearly a superset of C, C++ now supports most of C, with a few exceptions.
Objective-C was originally a very "thin" layer on top of C, and remains a strict superset of C that permits object-oriented programming using a hybrid dynamic/static typing paradigm. Objective-C derives its syntax from both C and Smalltalk: syntax that involves pre-processing, expressions, function declarations, and function calls is inherited from C, while the syntax for object-oriented features was originally taken from Smalltalk.
In addition to C++ and Objective-C, and Unified Parallel C are nearly supersets of C.