Programming Pedia

What Is Programming Language ??
--- A programming language is an artificial language designed to communicate instructions to a machine, particularly a computer. Programming languages can be used to create programs that control the behavior of a machine and/or to express algorithms.

            A programming language is an artificial language designed to communicate instructions to a machine, particularly a computer. Programming languages can be used to create programs that control the behavior of a machine and/or to express algorithms.

             The earliest programming languages preceded the invention of the computer, and were used to direct the behavior of machines such as Jacquard looms and player pianos.^[1] Thousands of different programming languages have been created, mainly in the computer field, and many more still are being created every year. Many programming languages require computation to be specified in an imperative form (i.e., as a sequence of operations to perform), while other languages utilize other forms of program specification such as the declarative form (i.e. the desired result is specified, not how to achieve it).
              The description of a programming language is usually split into the two components of syntax (form) and semantics (meaning). Some languages are defined by a specification document (for example, the C programming language is specified by an ISO Standard), while other languages (such as Perl) have a dominant implementation that is treated as a reference.

Short Description On Programming Languages : --

C :~

                    C is a general-purpose language which has been closely associated with the UNIX operating system for which it was developed - since the system and most of the programs that run it are written in C.

                     Many of the important ideas of C stem from the language BCPL, developed by Martin Richards. The influence of BCPL on C proceeded indirectly through the language B, which was written by Ken Thompson in 1970 at Bell Labs, for the first UNIX system on a DEC PDP-7. BCPL and B are "type less" languages whereas C provides a variety of data types.

                      In 1972 Dennis Ritchie at Bell Labs writes C and in 1978 the publication of The C Programming Language by Kernighan & Ritchie caused a revolution in the computing world.
In 1983, the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) established a committee to provide a modern, comprehensive definition of C. The resulting definition, the ANSI standard, or "ANSI C", was completed late 1988.

                     C was initially used for system development work, in particular the programs that make-up the operating system. Why use C? Mainly because it produces code that runs nearly as fast as code written in assembly language. Some examples of the use of C might be:

Operating Systems
Language Compilers
Assemblers
Text Editors
Print Spoolers
Network Drivers
Modern Programs
Data Bases
Language Interpreters
Utilities

In recent years C has been used as a general-purpose language because of its popularity with programmers. It is not the world's easiest language to learn and you will certainly benefit if you are not learning C as your first programming language! C is trendy (I nearly said sexy) - many well established programmers are switching to C for all sorts of reasons, but mainly because of the portability that writing standard C programs can offer.

First C Program :--

#include<stdio.h> // header files also known as preprocessor directive
#include<conio.h>  // header files also known as preprocessor directive
void main()
{
        clrscr(); // clears the screen
        printf("\n Hello World");
        getch(); // it waits untill the user/programmer enters a character
}

C++:~

In the early 1970s, Dennis Ritchie of Bell Laboratories was engaged in a project to develop a new operating system. Ritchie discovered that in order to accomplish his task he needed the use of a programming language that was concise and that produced compact and speedy programs. This need led Ritchie to develop the programming language called C.

     In the early 1980's, also at Bell Laboratories, another programming language was created which was based upon the C language. This new language was developed by Bjarne Stroustrup and was called C++. Stroustrup states that the purpose of C++ is to make writing good programs easier and more pleasant for the individual programmer. When he designed C++, he added OOP (Object Oriented Programming) features to C without significantly changing the C component. Thus C++ is a "relative" (called a superset) of C, meaning that any valid C program is also a valid C++ program.

                     Many other programming languages are derived from the C language. Some did well and some did not. The languages Objective-C and C++ for instance are derived from the C language. Both languages add the “object oriented” element to the language C. One of the most recent languages, that used much of the C language, is Java.
The programming language C++ (originally named “C with Classes”) was devised by Bjarne Stroustrup also an employee from Bell Labs (AT&T). Stroustrup started working on C with Classes in 1979.

                              The idea of creating a new language originated from a wish, to do things, that were not possible with other languages. He had experience with the language Simula and BCPL (Simula is a slow language, but it had some features that were very helpful for large software development projects. BCPL was to low-level). So he chose to enhance the C language with Simula-like features, because the C language was fast and portable. Stroustrup did not only use features from Simula but also borrowed features from the languages Ada, CLU, ALGOL 68 and ML.
In 1983, the name of the language was changed from C with Classes to C++. (The ++ is C language operator).

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