C is a general-purpose, high-level language that was originally developed by Dennis M. Ritchie
to develop the UNIX operating system at Bell Labs. C was originally first implemented on the
DEC PDP-11 computer in 1972.
In 1978, Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie produced the first publicly available description
of C, now known as the K&R standard.
The UNIX operating system, the C compiler, and essentially all UNIX application programs
have been written in C. C has now become a widely used professional language for various
reasons:
- Easy to learn
- Structured language
- It produces efficient programs
- It can handle low-level activities
- It can be compiled on a variety of computer platforms