C语言英文介绍

What contribution(s) did the language make to the field of computer languages?
With the increasing popularity of objectoriented programming, C is being rapidly replaced as "the" programming language by C++, a superset of the C language that uses an entirely different set of programming concepts, and by Java, a language similar to but simpler than C++, that was designed for use in distributed networks.
It is as a tool to write programs that did useful things; it was always meant to interact with a larger operating system, and was regarded as a tool to build larger tools. It covers the essential needs of many programmers, but does not try to supply too much.
The C Language
The C programming language was developed in the years 1969 to 1973, although the first published description did not appear until the book The C Programming Language" written by Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie was published in 1978. The early versions of the C language were strongly influenced by a language called BCPL which itself was a derviative of Algol.
How successful was the language?
It made the language available to hundreds of thousands of people. Conversely, of course, Unix's use of C and its consequent portability to a wide variety of machines was important in the system's success.
The early development of C was closely linked to the development of the Unix operating system. Large portions of the code of the Unix operating system were eventually written in C and problems encountered in transferring Unix to various computers were reflected into the design of the C language. The modest hardware available to the Unix developers was also reflected in the language design, most notably the use of separate library functions for operations such as input and output. Until the early 1980s the language was almost exclusively associated with Unix.
How widely is the language used today?
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Who were the envisioned users?
C is commonly used in computer science education, in part because the language is so pervasive.
What are some main features or distinctive features of the language?
Other infrastructures focus on adding new optimizations; C focuses on supporting multiple front ends for multiple languages. C has a machine-level type system, so you don't have to shoehorn your favorite high-level language into a high-level data model that doesn't fit. C provides a run-time interface, so you can implement garbage collection and exception handling using the techniques that are best suited to your language.