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- C language history:
- Developed by Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson
- Designed for OS and systems development (UNIX)
- Provides excellent control over hardware resources
- Established many programming paradigms still used today
- C language history:
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Low-level languages expose hardware details vs high-level languages which hide them
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Benefits:
- Performance - optimize code for hardware
- Control - directly manage hardware resources
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Downsides:
- Portability - hardware-dependent code doesn’t transfer well
- Productivity - more verbose, focus on hardware not problem
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C is excellent for OS and compiler development by providing good control over hardware