Why use C and preparing environment for using C

In our previous post we discussed about the history of C and today we have a glance about the usage of C in daily life and environment setup for implementing the code.

• C was initially used for system development work, particularly the programs that make up the OS.
• C produces code that runs nearly as fast as the code written in assembly language.
• Here are some of the examples where C can be used –
  • OS
  • Language Compilers
  • Assemblers
  • Text Editors
  • Print Spoolers
  • Network Drivers
  • Modern programs
  • Databases
  • Language Interpreters
  • Utilities

Now, we see about the environment setup for C language:

• If you want to set up your environment locally, you need the following two software tools.
  • Text Editor (Windows Notepad)
  • The C Compiler (GNU C/C++ Compiler)
• Here, we do not use turbo C compiler as so many schools and colleges are using. Here we go in a bit professional manner.
• It will be very easy to install the compiler.
• To install GCC on Windows, you need to install MinGW. To install MinGW, go to the MinGW homepage www.mingw.org and go to the MinGW download page.
• Download the latest version of MinGW installation program, which should be named MinGW-<version>.exe.
• While installing MinGW, at a minimum, you must install gcc-core, gcc-g++, binutils and the MinGW runtime, but you may install more as per your requirement.
• Add the bin sub directory of  your MinGW installation to your PATH environment variable, so that you can specify these tools on the command line by their simple names.
• After the installation, you will be able to run gcc, g++, ar, ranlib, dlltool, and several other GNU tools from the Windows command line.

In our next post in C Programming, we will discuss about writing the code and implementing it in our local system.

History of C

Before going into the programming language let us see some of the history of our basic programming language C.

• Developed in 1972 by Dennis M. Ritchie at Bell Telephone Laboratories.

  

  Dennis M Ritchie

• C was originally first implemented on DEC-PDP-11 computer in 1972.
• The language was formalized in 1988 by the American National Standard Institute (ANSI).
• The UNIX OS is totally written in C.
• Today’s most popular Linux OS and RDBMS MYSQL have been written in C.

In the next post we discuss about the usage of C and the local environment setup for our practice.