12-01-2012, 03:18 PM
C PROGRAMING LANGUAGE
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Preface
The computing world has undergone a revolution since the publication of The C
Programming Language in 1978. Big computers are much bigger, and personal
computers have capabilities that rival mainframes of a decade ago. During this time, C
has changed too, although only modestly, and it has spread far beyond its origins as the
language of the UNIX operating system.
Preface to the first edition
C is a general-purpose programming language with features economy of expression,
modern flow control and data structures, and a rich set of operators. C is not a ``very
high level'' language, nor a ``big'' one, and is not specialized to any particular area of
application. But its absence of restrictions and its generality make it more convenient
and effective for many tasks than supposedly more powerful languages.
Getting Started
The only way to learn a new programming language is by writing programs in it. The
first program to write is the same for all languages:
