History MediaNotes / TheCLanguage

C was co-created by Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson to use to help make a port of UsefulNotes/{{UNIX}}. Thompson intended to write UNIX in BCPL, however, since he didn't have the official description or documentation, he accidentally developed a much simpler and less wordy version now known as B. Ritchie then further improved B, which resulted in creating a new language, C.

C was soon becoming popular and was implemented on a wide variety of machines during the late 70s and 80s. This popularity fueled the need for standardization, and standardized it was. C18 is, and will be the current standard until 2021 when the community votes again.

%%!!Influence on Other Languages

%%This triggered a famous {{Snowclone}} in computing, with C's own successor being dubbed "C++" as a pun, after a command in C to increase a number by one. C++'s own successor would ''then'' be named "C#", and then all bets were off, with languages like C[=--=], D, F#, J#, and R.

C's speed and precision made it a popular choice for video game programming. Though C++ has mostly supplanted C in game programming now, many of the great games of yesteryear were written in C, especially during the '90s heyday of computer gaming. C's simple power allowed it to get the action moving at a lightning-pace, which coincided nicely with the increasing availability of sound cards and VGA graphics.

As Unix's popularity grew in academia, C displaced Fortran as the language of choice for scientific computing, before being itself displaced by UsefulNotes/{{Python}}, MATLAB, R, Mathematica and C++. C and Unix are so intertwined that C compilers on non-Unix systems often include tools to duplicate as much of a Unix environment as possible, including make and even Unix-like shells.

With the advent of higher level and safer languages, however, C started going the way of Latin. It's still considered essential for operating systems, hardware interfacing, and embedded systems (say, a thermostat or a pacemaker), but when it comes to applications, it's something of an elder statesman: it's generally accepted as an important pioneer, but it's often sidelined because of its antiquated methods, bare-bones nature, and propensity for bug-riddled coding. Many commercial programmers and businesses that don't have to work with preexisting C codebases or require the performance boost and direct hardware access of low-level code have graduated to its descendants like C# or Java or languages like UsefulNotes/{{Rust}} or Go, scripting languages like Perl, UsefulNotes/{{Ruby}} or UsefulNotes/{{Python}}, or premade frameworks like [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qt_(software) Qt]] (for applications) or UsefulNotes/{{Unity}} (for games). These are considered quicker to write code for and offer safer alternatives to C coding.

C came about at the tail-end of this period, and in many ways it serves as a bridge between these languages and newer ones. It's old enough that "pointers", a data type which allow a program to directly manipulate memory addresses, are a key feature, whereas most newer languages abstract that away and keep memory manipulation completely under the hood. This functionality is essential for operating system programming (as an OS is by definition something that manages your hardware for you), but directly manipulating memory is a good way for someone who doesn't know what they're doing to [[DarthWiki/IdiotProgramming shoot themselves in the foot]], and is often a source of {{Game Breaking Bug}}s.

    [[teal:printf]][[gray:(]][[blue:"]][[teal:%d\n]][[blue:"]][[gray:, a+b);]]\\

    [[teal:printf]][[gray:(]][[blue:"]][[teal:%d\n]][[blue:"]][[gray:, b+c);]]\\

    [[teal:printf]][[gray:(]][[blue:"]][[teal:%s\n]][[blue:"]][[gray:, b+c);]]\\

    [[teal:printf]][[gray:(]][[blue:"Hello and ]][[teal:%s]][[blue:"]][[gray:,c);]]\\

This is where C trusting the programmer really comes in. C won't throw an error if you try to add a number and a string [[note]](well, technically a char array)[[/note]] together, it will cast it based on the format specifier used [=(%d, %s, etc)=]. Meaning the string will convert to it's number and then add b.

    [[purple:for]][[gray:(]][[purple:int]] [[gray:i]]=[[blue:0]][[gray:;i]]<[[blue:10]][[gray:;i]]++[[gray:){]]\\

Outputs numbers 0 thru 9. Pretty standard [[ShapedLikeItself C-like]] for loop.

* ''Pokémon [[UsefulNotes/GameBoyAdvance Generation III]][[UsefulNotes/NintendoDS , IV and V]] main series games. ''[[labelnote:List of Games]][[VideoGame/PokemonRubyAndSapphire Ruby, Sapphire & Emerald]], [[VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue Fire Red & Leaf Green]], [[VideoGame/PokemonDiamondAndPearl Diamond, Pearl & Platinum]], [[VideoGame/PokemonGoldAndSilver HeartGold & SoulSilver]], [[VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite Black & White]], [[VideoGame/PokemonBlack2AndWhite2 Black 2 & White 2]].[[/labelnote]]

With the advent of higher level and safer languages, however, C started going the way of Latin. It's still considered essential for operating systems, hardware interfacing, and embedded systems (say, a thermostat or a pacemaker), but when it comes to applications, it's something of an elder statesman: it's generally accepted as an important pioneer, but it's often sidelined because of its antiquated methods, bare-bones nature, and propensity for bug-riddled coding. Many commercial programmers and businesses that don't have to work with preexisting C codebases or require the performance boost of low-level code have graduated to its descendants like C# or Java or languages like UsefulNotes/{{Rust}} or Go, scripting languages like Perl, UsefulNotes/{{Ruby}} or UsefulNotes/{{Python}}, or premade frameworks like [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qt_(software) Qt]] (for applications) or UsefulNotes/{{Unity}} (for games). These are considered quicker to write code for and offer safer alternatives to C coding.

* ''VideoGame/DukeNukem3D'' The source code is out there, but be warned: it is an EldritchAbomination that [[GoMadFromTheRevelation makes all who gaze upon it want to tear their eyes out in horror]].

* ''Videogame/SuperMario64''[[note]]Not released as open-source by Nintendo, but fans managed to decompile working C source code from the ROM in 2019[[/note]]

* ''Videogame/SuperMario64''

The resulting explosion of light and sound was the FirstPersonShooter boom: ''{{VideoGame/Doom}}'', ''[[{{VideoGame/Marathon}} Marathon 2]]'', ''{{VideoGame/Descent}}'', and ''VideoGame/DarkForces'' were all written in C, as were the first three ''{{VideoGame/Quake}}'' games, along with non-shooty games such as ''VideoGame/SimCity''. Since companies are under no obligation to release details about their source code, it's tough to say who's still using it, but Cryptic Studios has been known to use almost-entirely pure C in their games, such as ''VideoGame/CityOfHeroes'' and ''VideoGame/StarTrekOnline''.

As Unix's popularity grew in academia, C displaced Fortran as the language of choice for scientific computing, before being itself displaced by UsefulNotes/{{Python}}, MATLAB, R, Mathematica and C++. C and Unix are so intertwined that C compilers on non-Unix systems often include tools to duplicate as much of a Unix-like environment as possible, including make and even Unix-like shells.

As Unix's popularity grew in academia, C displaced Fortran as the language of choice for scientific computing, before being itself displaced by UsefulNotes/{{Python}}, MATLAB, R, Mathematica and C++.

As Unix became popular in academia, C displaced Fortran as the language of choice for scientific computing, before being itself displaced by UsefulNotes/{{Python}}, MATLAB, R, Mathematica and C++.

As Unix became popular in academia, C displaced Fortran as the language of choice for scientific computing, before being itself displaced by UsefulNotes/Python, MATLAB, R, Mathematica and C++.

As Unix became popular in academia, C displaced Fortran as the language of choice for scientific computing, before being itself displaced by UsefulNotes/Python, MATLAB, R and Mathematica.

With the advent of higher level and safer languages, however, C started going the way of Latin. It's still considered essential for operating systems, hardware interfacing, and embedded systems (say, a thermostat or a pacemaker), but when it comes to applications, it's something of an elder statesman: it's generally accepted as an important pioneer, but it's often sidelined because of its antiquated methods, bare-bones nature, and propensity for bug-riddled coding. Many commercial programmers and businesses that don't have to work with preexisting C codebases or require the performance boost of low-level code have graduated to its descendants like C# or Java or languages like UsefulNotes/{{Rust}}, scripting languages like Perl, UsefulNotes/{{Ruby}} or UsefulNotes/{{Python}}, or premade frameworks like [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qt_(software) Qt]] (for applications) or UsefulNotes/{{Unity}} (for games). These are considered quicker to write code for and offer safer alternatives to C coding.

As Unix became popular in academia, C displaced FORTRAN as the language of choice for scientific computing, before being itself displaced by UsefulNotes/Python, MATLAB, R and Mathematica.

With the advent of higher level and safer languages, however, C started going the way of Latin. It's still considered essential for operating systems, hardware interfacing, and embedded systems (say, a thermostat or a pacemaker), but when it comes to applications, it's something of an elder statesman: it's generally accepted as an important pioneer, but it's often sidelined because of its antiquated methods, bare-bones nature, and propensity for bug-riddled coding. Many commercial programmers and businesses that don't have to work with preexisting C codebases or require the performance boost of low-level code have graduated to its descendants like C# or Java or languages like UsefulNotes/{{Rust}}, scripting languages like Perl, Ruby or UsefulNotes/Python, or premade frameworks like [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qt_(software) Qt]] (for applications) or UsefulNotes/{{Unity}} (for games). These are considered quicker to write code for and offer safer alternatives to C coding.

With the advent of higher level and safer languages, however, C started going the way of Latin. It's still considered essential for operating systems, hardware interfacing, and embedded systems (say, a thermostat or a pacemaker), but when it comes to applications, it's something of an elder statesman: it's generally accepted as an important pioneer, but it's often sidelined because of its antiquated methods, bare-bones nature, and propensity for bug-riddled coding. Many commercial programmers and businesses that don't have to work with preexisting C codebases or require the performance boost of low-level code have graduated to its descendants like C# or Java or langauges like UsefulNotes/{{Rust}}, or premade frameworks like [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qt_(software) Qt]] (for applications) or UsefulNotes/{{Unity}} (for games). These are considered quicker to write code for and offer safer alternatives to C coding.

C is an [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperative_programming Imperative]], [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_system#STATIC Statically-Typed]], [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procedural_programming Procedural]] UsefulNotes/ProgrammingLanguage. It's often considered the mother of modern programming languages, to the point where most non-specialized new languages are either refinements on its strengths or attempts to avoid breaking keyboards over its shortcomings. Or, more often, both. This language was developed at a time when computing was done on mainframes by computer black-belts, and it does not hold your hand.

C was co-created by Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson to use to help make a port of UsefulNotes/UNIX. Thompson intended to write UNIX in BCPL, however, since he didn't have the official description or documentation, he accidentally developed a much simpler and less wordy version now known as B. Ritchie then further improved B, which resulted in creating a new language, C.

C's roots can be traced all the way back to FORTRAN, but the important ancestors are a language called CPL (Combined Programming Language) and its increasingly simpler, modified descendants known as BCPL (Basic Combined Programming Language) and B, the last from which the name "C" was derived. This triggered a famous {{Snowclone}} in computing, with C's own successor being dubbed "C++" as a pun, after a command in C to increase a number by one. C++'s own successor would ''then'' be named "C#", and then all bets were off, with languages like C[=--=], D, F#, J#, and R.

C is an [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperative_programming imperative]], [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_system#STATIC statically-typed]], [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procedural_programming procedural]] UsefulNotes/ProgrammingLanguage. It's often considered the mother of modern programming languages, to the point where most non-specialized new languages are either refinements on its strengths or attempts to avoid breaking keyboards over its shortcomings. Or, more often, both. This language was developed at a time when computing was done on mainframes by computer black-belts, and it does not hold your hand.

!!Just Following Procedure

Though C is broad enough to be used for many purposes, it is technically known as a "procedural" language. Any C code not designed to induce a headache is broken up into small chunks of self-contained code. The program calls procedures (known in C as functions, but not to be confused with functional ''programming'', which is something else entirely) which perform a smaller subtask and then return control to the part of the code that called it.

Hence, chunks of code can be reused many, many times according to the control flow (the logic built into a program), as opposed to older "batch" programs which would be fed input and spit the results back out at you. C's modular nature comes from its role as a systems language designed to program {{UsefulNotes/UNIX}} at [=AT&T's=] Bell Labs, and to this day it remains a popular language for operating systems. Both UsefulNotes/MicrosoftWindows and the UsefulNotes/{{Linux}} kernel are written in C, and [[UsefulNotes/MacOS OSX]] is written in a variant called "Objective-C".

When discussing C, it's often rolled up with C++ to become "C/C++". Almost all valid C code will run with no problems inside C++, since C++ was designed to wrap around C like a matryoshka doll.[[note]]C++ tends to be more pedantic with its casting, requiring an explicit cast where C would cast implicitly, and reserves more words as keywords which breaks any code which uses them as names. It also maintains less compatibility with older pre-1989 C code. C++ compilers (such as Microsoft Visual C++) tend to include C modes/compilers as standard, though.[[/note]] However, it's something of a BerserkButton for some programmers, who say C++ has its own entirely different coding practices, since C++ is ''object-oriented'' rather than procedural. In C, things such as the player's health, location, and weapon are treated as individual datum by the code, which can be changed by any procedure that is directed to change it. In C++ however, that data is instead (at least supposed to be) part of an object, which is concealed from the rest of the code. In practice, however, due to many codebases starting out as C before being upgraded to C++ at some point in their history, it's common to see projects that mix both languages' conventions and coding styles.

With the advent of higher level languages, however, C started going the way of Latin. It's still considered essential for operating systems, hardware interfacing, and embedded systems (say, a thermostat or a pacemaker), but when it comes to applications, it's something of an elder statesman: it's generally accepted as an important pioneer, but it's often sidelined because of its antiquated methods, bare-bones nature, and propensity for bug-riddled coding. Many commercial programmers and businesses that don't have to work with preexisting C codebases or require the performance boost of low-level code have graduated to its descendants like C# or Java, or premade frameworks like [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qt_(software) Qt]] (for applications) or UsefulNotes/{{Unity}} (for games). These are considered quicker to write code for and offer safer alternatives to C coding.

!!Origin

!!Modern Times

With the advent of higher level languages, C started going the way of Latin. It's still considered essential for operating systems, hardware interfacing, and embedded systems (say, a thermostat or a pacemaker), but when it comes to applications, it's something of an elder statesman: it's generally accepted as an important pioneer, but it's often sidelined because of its antiquated methods, bare-bones nature, and propensity for bug-riddled coding. Many commercial programmers and businesses that don't have to work with preexisting C codebases or require the performance boost of low-level code have graduated to its descendants like C# or Java, or premade frameworks like [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qt_(software) Qt]] (for applications) or UsefulNotes/{{Unity}} (for games). These are considered quicker to write code for and offer safer alternatives to C coding.

!!Doom and Boom

C's speed and precision made it a popular choice for video game programming. Though C++ has mostly supplanted C in game programming now, many of the great games of yesteryear were written in C, especially during the '90s heyday of computer gaming. C's simple power allowed it to get the action moving at a lightning-pace, which coincided nicely with the increasing availability of sound cards and VGA graphics.

The resulting explosion of light and sound was the FirstPersonShooter boom: ''{{VideoGame/Doom}}'', ''[[{{VideoGame/Marathon}} Marathon 2]]'', ''{{VideoGame/Descent}}'', and ''VideoGame/DarkForces'' were all written in C, as were the first three ''{{VideoGame/Quake}}'' games, along with non-shooty games such as ''VideoGame/SimCity''. Since companies are under no obligation to release details about their source code, it's tough to say who's still using it, but Cryptic Studios has been known to use almost-entirely pure C in their games, such as ''VideoGame/CityOfHeroes'' and ''VideoGame/StarTrekOnline''.

Even for game engines written in C++ or other languages, enormously popular libraries such as SDL (Simple [=DirectMedia=] Layer, which simplifies interfacing with operating systems) and UsefulNotes/OpenGL (the industry standard for 3D graphics) are written in C, meaning lots of function calls to underlying C code. The popular open source CGI software Blender is also built with a C core[[note]]with Python scripting and a touch of C++ for the physics[[/note]], so ''WesternAnimation/BigBuckBunny'', ''{{Film/Sintel}}'', and ''Film/TearsOfSteel'' were all modeled, animated, and rendered by C code.

Wherever graphics go, there the C programming language is. Although it's often paired with scripting languages or other toolkits, C remains a backbone of hardware intensive programs due to its ability to manipulate memory, interact with hardware, and run very quickly while doing both those things. That, coupled with its ubiquity in the lower-level architecture of modern information technology, ensures that C remains as vital as it has been for the past half-century. And it will ensure that C remains a vital tool for programmers to shoot themselves in the foot with for the foreseeable future.

C is an [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperative_programming imperative]], [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_system#STATIC statically-typed]], [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procedural_programming procedural]] UsefulNotes/ProgrammingLanguage. It's often considered the mother of modern programming languages, to the point where most non-specialized new languages are either refinements on its strengths or attempts to avoid breaking keyboards over its shortcomings. Or, more often, both. This language, like the UsefulNotes/{{Unix}} operating system it was designed for, was developed at a time when computing was done on mainframes by computer black-belts, and it does not hold your hand.

----

[[folder:Code Examples]]

%%https://www.onlinegdb.com/online_c_compiler

C is an [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperative_programming imperative]], [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_system#STATIC statically-typed]], [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procedural_programming procedural]] UsefulNotes/ProgrammingLanguage. It's often considered the mother of modern programming languages, to the point where most non-specialized new languages are either refinements on its strengths or attempts to avoid breaking keyboards over its shortcomings. Or, more often, both.

Not to be confused with ''The C Programming Language'', the original specification manual written by the language's developers, Dennis Ritchie and Brian Kernighan, although some confusion will inevitably result, because diving into the C language ''will'' often led to GuideDangIt. This language, like the UsefulNotes/{{Unix}} operating system it was designed for, was developed at a time when computing was done on mainframes by computer black-belts, and it does not hold your hand.

    [[green://Outputs random data depending on the code below]]\\

\\C rarely gives errors, but

Outputs numbers 0 thru 9.

%https://www.onlinegdb.com/online_c_compiler

    [[purple:int]] [[gray:b]] = [[blue:7]][[gray;]]\\

    printf("%d\n", a+b);\\
    //Outputs 17\\
    printf("%d\n", b+c);\\
    //Outputs 4195995\\
    printf("%s\n", b+c);\\
    //Outputs random data depending on the code below\\
    printf("Hello and %s",c);\\
    //Outputs Hello and hi
    return 0;\\
}\\

@@#include <stdio.h>\\

* ''VideoGame/DukeNukem3D'' The source code for Duke Nukem 3D is also out there, but be warned: it is an EldritchAbomination that [[GoMadFromTheRevelation makes all who gaze upon it want to tear their eyes out in horror]].

@@[=#=]include <stdio.h>\\
int main() {\\
    printf("Hello World!");\\
    return 0;\\
}\\

@@#include <stdio.h>\\
int main() {\\
    int a = 10;\\
    int b = 7;\\
    char* c = "hi";\\

    //Outputs 4195902\\