C Overview
What is C?
- Since the late 19th century, C has been a popular programming language for general-purpose use.
- C language was developed by Dennis M. Ritchie at Bell Laboratories in the early 1970s.
- Its applications are diverse, ranging from developing operating systems to databases and more.
- It is a system programming language used for low-level programming (e.g., drivers or kernels).
- Despite its age, C is still a very popular programming language.
- The entire UNIX operating system was written in C, establishing a strong association with the operating system.
- C has been widely used in creating iOS and Android kernels.
- MySQL database is written using C.
- Ruby and Pearl are mostly written using C.
- Most parts of Apache and NGINX are written using C.
- Embedded Systems are created using C.
Why should we learn C / Features of C?
- It is one of the most popular programming languages globally.
- Learning other popular programming languages becomes easier if you know C.
- C is flexible and can be used in a variety of applications and technologies.
- C is very fast compared to other programming languages like Java or Python.
- C takes only significant CPU time for interpretation, making it suitable for building libraries like NumPy, pandas, Scikit-learn in Python.
- Being close to Machine language, C allows direct access to machine-level hardware APIs.
- It is a structural language and a compiled language.
- It is a procedural programming language (POP).
How is it different from C++?
- The syntax of C++ is almost identical to that of C, as C++ was developed as an extension of C.
- In contrast to C, C++ supports classes and objects, while C does not.
- C gives most of the control to the hands of users, allowing more direct manipulation of memory and efficiency.
- C is procedural programming (POP), whereas C++ is object-oriented programming (OOP).