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1. INTRODUCING C. History of C. • Designed and implemented by Dennis Ritchie of Bell Labs between 1969 and 1973. • Created to serve as the implementation language for the UNIX operating system.
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History of C • Designed and implemented by Dennis Ritchie of Bell Labs between 1969 and 1973. • Created to serve as the implementation language for the UNIX operating system. • Named after the B language, its immediate predecessor (which in turn was named after the BCPL language). • Became popular during the 1980s, both for UNIX programming and for developing applications for personal computers. • Dennis Ritchie’s article, “The Development of the C Language,” can be found on the web at cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/chist.html.
Versions of C • K&R C Described in Kernighan and Ritchie, The C Programming Language, Prentice-Hall, 1978 • ANSI C (ISO C, C89) ANSI standard X3.159-1989 (completed in 1988; formally approved in December 1989) International standard ISO/IEC 9899:1990 Described in Kernighan and Ritchie, The C Programming Language, Second Edition, Prentice-Hall, 1988 • C99 International standard ISO/IEC 9899:1999
Advantages of C • Advantages • Efficient • Portable • Powerful • Flexible • Standard library • Integrated well with UNIX
Disadvantages of C • Disadvantages • Error-prone • Difficult to understand • Difficult to maintain
Recommendations • Recommendations • Use tools (lint, debuggers, etc.) to make programs more reliable. • Use libraries of existing code (both to save time and increase reliability). • Adopt a sensible set of coding conventions. • Avoid “tricks” and complicated code.