The History Of C Programming Language

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What is C programming language? When and why was it invented? What does the technology do? What impact does it have on our society?

History of C programming language and its influence on our society
University of Adelaide
April 10, 2014
COMP SCI 1101
Donghyeon Yoon

Under the rapid revolution of technologies, great convenience is provided to everyone around the world. Students nowadays are typically exposed to computing. As the modern technologies such as computers, smartphones, and tablets are becoming part of our everyday life, writing computer programs to solve problems is becoming a basic skill for all students. And the fundamental of these computing and modern technologies is called C language. This paper will explore the history of the C programming language and analyse its influence towards the modern technologies.
The C programming language is a popular and widely used programming language for creating computer programs. Cory(2012) defines C as ‘a widely used programming language around the world by programmers, which provides maximum control and efficiency and is ideal for developing firmware or portable applications’
The history of C language is not very long compared to the tremendous influence of C language upon the modern technologies. To speak about c programming language, Dennis M. Ritchie must be mentioned. Dennis MacAlistair Ritchie was an American computer scientist who helped shaping the digital era. He created the C programming language and Unix operating system with his colleague Ken Thompson. (Geoff, 2011)
In the late 1960s, after earning a degree in physics and applied mathematics from Harvard, Ritchie started his career at Bell Labs (AT&T), which was one of the centers of technology development...

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...r a large computer. And with its long term maintenance, even today, C plays a crucial part in IT industry. (Noll and Landon, 1996) C created excessively diverse and broad ecosystem of technology. GPS, security systems, satellites, traffic lights, Internet routers, digital cameras, Microcontrollers, televisions, computers, smartphones and literally every technology that we are using at the moment, are based on C programming language. It also led computer scientists and IT professional to in-depth study of science, technology, engineering and Mathematics. (Gustavo, 2009) "C is not a 'very high level' language, nor a 'big' one, and is not specialized to any particular area of application. But its absence of restrictions and its generality make it more convenient and effective for many tasks than supposedly more powerful languages."(Kernighan, Brian and Ritchie, 1998)

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