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3.0 KiB
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18 lines
3.0 KiB
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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" standalone="no"?>
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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><title>C</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="../../jargon.css" type="text/css"/><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.61.0"/><link rel="home" href="../index.html" title="The Jargon File"/><link rel="up" href="../C.html" title="C"/><link rel="previous" href="../C.html" title="C"/><link rel="next" href="C-Programmers-Disease.html" title="C Programmer's Disease"/></head><body><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">C</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="../C.html">Prev</a> </td><th width="60%" align="center">C</th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="C-Programmers-Disease.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr/></div><dt><a id="C"/><dt xmlns="" id="C"><b>C</b>: <span xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" class="grammar">n.</span></dt></dt><dd><p> 1. The third letter of the English alphabet. </p></dd><dd><p> 2. ASCII 1000011. </p></dd><dd><p> 3. The name of a programming language designed by Dennis Ritchie
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during the early 1970s and immediately used to reimplement
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<a href="../U/Unix.html"><i class="glossterm">Unix</i></a>; so called because many features derived from
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an earlier compiler named ‘B’ in commemoration of
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<span class="emphasis"><em>its</em></span> parent, BCPL. (BCPL was in turn descended from an
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earlier Algol-derived language, CPL.) Before Bjarne Stroustrup settled the
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question by designing <a href="C-plus-plus.html"><i class="glossterm">C++</i></a>, there was a humorous
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debate over whether C's successor should be named ‘D’ or
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‘P’. C became immensely popular outside Bell Labs after about
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1980 and is now the dominant language in systems and microcomputer
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applications programming. C is often described, with a mixture of fondness
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and disdain varying according to the speaker, as “<span class="quote">a language that
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combines all the elegance and power of assembly language with all the
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readability and maintainability of assembly language</span>” See also
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<a href="../L/languages-of-choice.html"><i class="glossterm">languages of choice</i></a>, <a href="../I/indent-style.html"><i class="glossterm">indent
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style</i></a>.</p><div class="mediaobject"><img src="../graphics/ansi-c.png"/><div class="caption"><p>The Crunchly on the left sounds a little ANSI.</p></div></div></dd><div class="navfooter"><hr/><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="../C.html">Prev</a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="../C.html">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="C-Programmers-Disease.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">C </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="../index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> C Programmer's Disease</td></tr></table></div></body></html>
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