The C programming language has a rich history and is considered one of the most influential programming languages in computer science.
History of C Programming:
| Year | Milestone |
|---|---|
| 1960s | Early programming languages like ALGOL, BCPL (Basic Combined Programming Language), and B were developed, influencing the creation of C. |
| 1969–1970 | Ken Thompson at Bell Labs developed the B language, a simplified version of BCPL, used on the PDP-7 computer. |
| 1972 | Dennis Ritchie, also at Bell Labs, developed C from the B language to add data types and improve functionality. |
| 1973 | The UNIX operating system was rewritten in C, making it the first operating system written in a high-level language. This greatly increased the popularity of C. |
| 1978 | Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie published the book “The C Programming Language”, known as K\&R C. This became the de facto standard for writing C code. |
| 1989 | The ANSI C standard was established by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), called C89 or C90 (ISO). |
| 1999 | The C99 standard introduced new features like inline functions, new data types (long long int, etc.), and better support for scientific computing. |
| 2011 | The C11 standard added features for multi-threading, improved Unicode support, and safer library functions. |
| 2018 | The C17 standard (also known as C18) made small updates and bug fixes to C11. |
Why C Became Popular?
- Efficient and close to hardware (low-level access).
- Highly portable across systems.
- Powerful and flexible for system programming.
- Basis for many modern languages like C++, Java, and Python.
