An Introduction of C Programming Language | C language Tutorial

Before we begin to write serious programs in C, it would be interesting to find out-

• What really is C?
• How it came into existence?
• How does it compare with other programming languages?

What really is C?

C is a programming language developed at AT & T's Bell Laboratories of the USA in 1972.  It was designed and written by a man named Dennis Ritchie.

C is a general-purpose, procedural computer programming language supporting a structured programming concept.

C is a successor to a programming language B.

How it came into existence? 

In the late seventies, C began to replace the more familiar languages of that time like PL/I, ALGOL, etc.

No one pushed C. It wasn't made the 'official' Bell lab language. Thus, without any advertisement, C's reputation spread, and its pool of users grew. 

Ritchie seems to have been rather surprised that so many programmers preferred C to older languages like FORTRAN or  PL/I, or the new ones like Pascal and APL. 

Possibly why C seems so popular because it is reliable, simple, and easy to use. 

How does it compare with other Programming Language?

C has been already superseded by languages like C++, C#, and Java, so why bother to learn C today.

well, there are several reasons for this. These are follows-

C++, C#, or Java make use of a principle called Object-Oriented Programming ( OOP ) to organize the program. This organizing principle has lots of advantages to offer. But even while using this organizing principle you would still need a good hold over the language elements of C and the basic programming skills. So it makes more sense to first learn C and then migrate to other programming languages.

The major part of popular operating systems like Window, UNIX, Linux, and Android are written in C. This is because even today when it comes to performance nothing beats C.

Many electronic devices are getting smarter by the day. This smartness comes from a microprocessor, an operating system, and a program embedded in these devices. These programs not only have to run fast but also have to work in a limited amount of memory. No wonder that such programs are written in C.

You must have seen several professional 3D games where users navigate some objects. The essence of all such games is speed. Noone likes laggy games, To match the expectations of the player the game has to react fast to the user inputs. This is where C language scores over other languages.

                                                                                                                                 

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