Hello learners!!
C is a general-purpose, procedural programming language created in 1972 by Dennis Ritchie at Bell Labs (USA).
It was originally developed to write the UNIX operating system.
Even in 2026, C remains one of the most important programming languages in the world.
| Rank | Area where C is still #1 or very strong | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Operating System kernels | Linux, Windows (parts), macOS (parts), Android kernel |
| 2 | Embedded Systems / IoT / Microcontrollers | Cars, washing machines, medical devices, drones |
| 3 | Game engines (performance critical parts) | Unreal Engine, Unity internals, Godot core |
| 4 | Compilers & language runtimes | GCC, Clang, Python, JavaScript (V8), Rust, Go |
| 5 | High-performance servers & databases | Nginx, Redis, PostgreSQL (parts), SQLite |
| 6 | Understanding how computers really work | Memory, pointers, hardware interaction |
The Birth of C: A Language Born from Necessity
C didn't appear out of nowhere. It was created in the early 1970s at AT&T Bell Labs (USA) because the existing tools weren't good enough for building a revolutionary new operating system called Unix.
Key person: Dennis M. Ritchie (September 9, 1941 – October 2011) — widely regarded as the "father" of C.
1969–1970 Ken Thompson creates "B" language (very simple, based on BCPL) → Used to start building early Unix on PDP-7 machine 1971–1972 Dennis Ritchie improves "B" dramatically → Adds data types, better syntax, structures → becomes "C" (1972) 1973 Unix kernel mostly rewritten in C (huge moment!) → Before this, OS kernels were usually written in pure assembly 1978 Kernighan & Ritchie publish "The C Programming Language" → The famous white book (K&R C) – still legendary today 1983 ANSI committee starts standardizing C → to make it portable 1989/1990 ANSI C (C89) / ISO C (C90) released → first official standard 1999 C99 – adds inline functions, variable-length arrays, better integer types 2011 C11 – threads, atomic operations, better Unicode support 2018 C17 – mainly bug fixes & clarifications (very minor update) 2024 (Oct) **C23** published (ISO/IEC 9899:2024)—the current modern standard! → Adds nullptr, constexpr, #embed, auto (limited), attributes [[...]], etc.