1. Introduction to C Programming

Welcome to C

Welcome to C ! C is a powerful computer programming high level language that is appropriate for technically oriented people with little or no programming experience and for experienced programmers to use in building substantial information systems. C evolved from two previous languages, BCPL and B. BCPL was developed in 1967 by Martin Richards as a language for writing operating-systems software and compilers. Ken Thompson modeled many features in his B language after their counterparts in BCPL, and in 1970 he used B to create early versions of the UNIX operating system at Bell Laboratories. Both BCPL and B were “typeless” languages—every data item occupied one “word” in memory, and the burden of typing variables fell on the shoulders of the programmer. The C language was evolved from B by Dennis Ritchie at Bell Laboratories and was originally implemented on a DEC PDP-11 computer in 1972. C initially became widely known as the development language of the UNIX operating system. Today, virtually all new major operating systems are written in C and/or C++. C is available for most computers. C is mostly hardware independent. With careful design, it’s possible to write C programs that are portable to most computers.

Questions