What is C language? Why C is called mother language?
Hello Developers, In this article, I have explained why it's a good choice to learn C language and also many things regarding it. Firstly, we will learn, What is C language? Why do we learn C language? I have also explained some important features of it which played an important role in calling C as mother language of all other programming languages. Now, without further ado, let's dive right into it.
What is C Language?
C is a programming language which is used for creating System application (or software). Actually, user can not interact directly with the hardware. If a user wants to interact with the hardware, then system application is required. System applications directly interact with the hardware devices such as drivers, kernels etc. C language follows the top-down approach.
Who has developed C Language?
C is general purpose programming language which is developed by Dennis Ritchie in 1972 Bell Laboratories of AT&T. AT&T stands for American Telephone & Telegraph. Bell Laboratories is an industrial research and scientific development company.
Which Programming Languages were replaced by C?
Many popular programming languages of that time were replaced by C language and these languages were ALGOL, BCPL & B. Here is the full Evolution of C Programming Language:
ALGOL ➡ BCPL ➡ B ➡ Tradition C ➡ K&R C ➡ ANSI C ➡ ANSI/ISO C ➡ C99
Why C is So Popular?
C is reliable, simple and easy to use. It is a procedural, structured and mid-level programming language. Now some questions arise in our mind such as what is procedural and what is structured.
What is Procedural language?
A procedural language is a type of computer programming language that specifies a series of well-structured steps to solve the problem. It contains a systematic order of statements, functions and commands to complete a computational task or program.
In other words, It is a way to solve a problem through simple steps. It is also known as function. Procedural language breaks a program into functions and data structures. C is a procedural language that's why variables and function prototypes must be declared before being used in the program.
Procedural language is also known as imperative language.
What is Structured Language?
Structured language breaks the program into small parts and solves each part individually. Structured programming is a subset of procedural programming language. It is also known as modular programming. Structure programming makes use of the top-down model.
Why is C mid-Level Language?
C is a mid-level language because it supports both programming features, low level and high-level language.
Why C Language is mother Of all other Language?
C is one of the most widely used programming languages of all time, and C compilers are available for the majority of available computer architectures and operating systems. The C language has formed the basis for many languages including C++, Java, JavaScript, Go, Rust, Limbo, LPC, C#, PHP, Python, Perl, Verilog, and C-shell.
C language had provided many new concepts for the programming language like variables, data types, loops, array, function, file handling, dynamic memory allocation, pointers and most of these concepts are used in many modern languages like C++, Java, C#.
Most popular Linux Kernel and most UNIX utilities, what you would call the operating system are written in C.
The first programming language for the computer was Plankalkul, but C language is seen as the first high-level programming language. C is the only language that exists for the longest period of time in the computer programming history.
Some Other Important Points about C Language
- Major parts of Operating Systems like Windows, UNIX, Linux are written in C language. In fact, C language was heavily used to reimplement the UNIX Operating system.
- If a user wants to learn any Object-Oriented Language programming language before it, It is advisable for him to start from structured oriented language like C because it will help him clear basic programming concepts.
- Everyone should try to learn C language before C++, Java, C#( or object-oriented language) because it makes easy to learn the object-oriented programming language concepts.
That's all for this topic. If you guys have any suggestions or queries, feel free to drop a comment. We would be happy to add that in our post. You can also contribute your articles by creating contributor account here.
Happy Learning 🙂
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Tags: C++, Programming
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