Glossary

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C
C*
C1
C2
C3
C3I
C4
CA
Can
Cat
CBA
CBC
CCB
CCI
CCO
CDR
CDS
CF
CFD
CFE
CI
CIA
CIK
CIP
CK
CKG
CKL
CM
CMP
CMS
CN
CNK
COR
CPC
Cpi
CPS
CPU
CRB
CRC
CRO
CRP
CSA
CSC
CSE
CSM
CSO
CSS
CTY
CUP
CVA
CWC
C*
  • n. The third letter of the English alphabet.
  • ASCII 1000011.
  • The name of a programming language designed by Dennis Ritchie during the early 1970s and immediately used to reimplement UNIX; so called because many features derived from an earlier compiler named `B' in commemoration of *its* parent, BCPL. (BCPL was in turn descended from an earlier ALGOL-derived language, CPL. ) Before Bjarne Stroustrup settled the question by designing C++, there was a humorous debate over whether C's successor should be named `D' or `P'. C became immensely popular outside Bell Labs after about 1980 and is now the dominant language in systems and microcomputer applications programming. See also languages of choice, indent style. C is often described, with a mixture of fondness and disdain varying according to the speaker, as "a language that combines all the elegance and power of assembly language with all the readability and maintainability of assembly language".