 |
 |
C Programming
Name: Nick
Status: Student
Age: 18
Location: N/A
Country: N/A
Date: Around 1999
Question:
I am a senior in high school and I am doing a research
paper on C programming. I have taken great interest in programming and
wanted to know more about how it originated. I would like to know when C
language became used in programming, and just a brief history of C. This
would be a great help. Thank you.
Replies:
C was originally developed by Dennis Ritchie at Bell laboratories in the
early 1970's. It was developed to be a portable, general, and efficient
language. By providing a simple syntax and a standard library, the language
was able to acheive these goals.
In 1978, Dennis Ritchie and Brian Kernighan published a book, "The C
Programming Language", which basically became the first standard C.
From this point, it rapidly became more popular. By the late 1980's (around
1987) it was one of the most popular languages for programming, and was used
on just about every type of platform.
In 1989, the ANSI standard for C was finalized.
Unfortunately, the AT&T C++ standard was written in the late 1980's and
rapidly took over. Since programs written in C can be compiled in C++, it
was easy for C programmers to simply switch compilers, use all their old
programs, and learn C++.
By 1990, it was clear C++ would be the new standard. Today programs written
completely in ANSI C are extremely rare, and many "C" compilers have
incorporated at least some of the features of C++.
Hope this helps,
--Eric Tolman
Click here to return to the Computer Science Archives
| |
Update: June 2012
|
|
