Why C is Popular? Explore 4 Unknown Facts of C Programming

Everyone who has heard about C knows that it is one of the oldest programming languages, but doesn’t know the secret of its popularity. Do you know Why C is popular?

Here, we will get each and every detail, which makes it popular and a demanding language in the IT industry. Not only the secret is revealed but also, we will uncover some unknown truths.

Before we explore the secret, you should know the latest career opportunities in C

1. Why C is Called an Evergreen Language?

Despite several decades of existence, programmers do not regard C as an obsolete language. It continues to dominate the realm of programming. The historical relevance of C is what gives it its appeal. The first operating system (UNIX) to be developed with the help of a programming language was done using the C programming language.

Here are some of the reasons why C is known as an evergreen language and why it didn’t fade away with time which will eventually provide one of the reasons for you to learn C.

1. The C programming language is simple to understand. Technically, C is a mid-level language which means that it is in close association with both low-level and high-level languages. The high-level language characteristic makes it easily relatable to the human language with easy English words and phrases.
   Fun fact: Sanskrit is regarded as the most suitable language for programming as each and every word in Sanskrit connotes a logical meaning to the compiler.
2. The most important feature of C is the implementation of various data types, loops, arrays, functions, structures, unions, macros, user-defined operations, linked lists, stacks and queues, binary trees, hash tables, and pointers.
3. C serves as the base language or you can say, a prerequisite for learning other programming languages. Most of the popularly used programming languages came after the birth of C.
4. C is a structured (modular) programming language that allows the programmer to break his codes into smaller fragments to improve the readability of the code and hence make the program less redundant and simple.
5. The portability feature of C also plays an important role in making it an evergreen language. Who wants to study a language where you cannot use the same piece of code on different platforms? C comes with this unique feature that makes our work much easier. Suppose you are a Windows user but for some apparent reasons you want to switch to Linux. Now, the programs that you have written and executed on let’s say, CodeBlocks will work and give the same output when copied and pasted in a terminal while using LINUX.
6. The C standard library provides you a remarkable range of inbuilt functions that eases out things for the programmer.
7. The C programming language helps you to manage memory efficiently as it supports the feature of dynamic memory allocation and bit fields.

2. Why C is known as the Mother Language?

C is one of the oldest and most popular programming languages that is very important to learn in order to step foot in the programming world. The knowledge of programming would be incomplete if you know various other languages except for C.

Only after the advent of C, other programming languages came into the big picture.

We convey the core concepts of programming with the help of looping, arrays, conditional statements, functions, pointers, file handling, and structures in C. Learning to implement these concepts helps you develop a base for programming to solve complex problems in the long run.

3. Why it is Still Used in Industries?

Use of the C programming language widely finds applications in industries because of the following reasons:

1. Software engineers still use C in embedded systems and compiler design. C is in close association with the machine language that is easily understood by the compiler. Hence, the C language serves as a communication channel between the compiler and the operating system.
2. Microsoft Windows and different types of Android applications are scripted in C.
3. Programmers use it for designing the GUI (Graphical User Interface). The Adobe Photoshop editor came into existence with the help of C. Similarly, other photo editors can be developed with the help of the C programming language.
4. C offers the benefit to the software developer to create new programming languages.
5. The tremendous speed is one of the salient features of C that allows us to work faster and is extensively used in the gaming and animation sector. Other programming languages like Python and Java are relatively slower than C as they are interpreter based.

4. Learning C is Still Worthwhile

Like we already discussed that the C programming language is considered a prerequisite for learning other programming languages as it builds a foundation for beginners to implement advanced concepts.

It would hardly take a month for you to get acquainted with the concepts and syntax of C.

After that, it is a lifelong journey for you to explore as much as C has to offer that comes through hard work and practice. This gives the basic answer to your question of reasons to learn C. The working hard part becomes easy to adapt as programming is an interesting concept to learn and implement.

5. Summary

Now, we got the answers to the queries we had in mind before starting off with the C programming language. We got to know why the world still considers C as an evergreen language although it has been almost five decades since it came into existence. Thereafter, we discussed the reason behind its use in industries. Finally, we concluded our discussion by stating why C is the mother of all languages.

Refer C Programming Best Practices to Become an Expert

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