C Overview

 

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 laboratory in early 1970s⁣
  • Its applications are very diverse. It ranges from developing operating systems to databases and all.⁣     It is system programming language used to do low level programming (e.g., driver or kernel)
  • Even if it’s old, it is still a very popular programming language.⁣
  • As the whole UNIX operating system was written in C, it has a strong association with the operating system⁣
  • C has also been used widely while creating iOS and Android kernels.⁣
  • MySQL database is written using C.⁣
  • Ruby and Pearl are mostly written using C.⁣
  • Most part of Apache and NGINX is written using C.⁣
  • Embedded Systems are created using C⁣

 

Why should we learn C/ Features of C?

  • As mentioned above, it is one of the most popular programming languages in the world.
  • Learning any other popular programming language such as Python or C++ becomes a cakewalk already if you know C.
  • C is a flexible language and that gets proven by the fact that it can be used in a variety of applications as well as technologies.
  • C is very fast when compared to other programming languages be it Java or Python.
  • C takes only significant CPU time for interpretation. That is why a lot of Python libraries such as NumPy, pandas, Scikit-learn, etc. are built using C.
  • Being close to Machine language, some of its functions include direct access to machine-level hardware APIs.

  • It is a structural language (Follows a specific Structure) /Compiled language this point should be added

  • It is procedural programming language (POP) Procedurall Programming is the use of code in a step-wise procedure to develop applications. 

 

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 hand of users. Things like memory allocation and manipulation are totally in the hands of the programmer. Being a flexible language, it provides more access to the programmer because of which it is more efficient.

  • .C is POP(procedure oriented programming) whereas c++ is OOP(Object oriented programming)

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