CGS 3460

• Course Web Site– Get CISE Account– Submit via Web Ct

– Late Policy– 50% Per Day

– Missubmission policy

– Academic Honesty– Class Scheduling

Student Breakdown

1. INTRODUCING C

History of C

• Designed and implemented by Dennis Ritchie of Bell Labs between 1969 and 1973.

• Created to serve as the implementation language for the UNIX operating system.

• Named after the B language, its immediate predecessor (which in turn was named after the BCPL language).

• Became popular during the 1980s, both for UNIX programming and for developing applications for personal computers.

• Dennis Ritchie’s article, “The Development of the C Language,” can be found on the web at

cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/chist.html.

Versions of C

• K&R CDescribed in Kernighan and Ritchie, The C Programming

Language, Prentice-Hall, 1978

• ANSI C (ISO C, C89)ANSI standard X3.159-1989 (completed in 1988; formally

approved in December 1989)International standard ISO/IEC 9899:1990Described in Kernighan and Ritchie, The C Programming

Language, Second Edition, Prentice-Hall, 1988

• C99International standard ISO/IEC 9899:1999

Advantages of C

• Advantages

– Efficient– Portable– Powerful– Flexible– Standard library– Integrated well with UNIX

Disadvantages of C

• Disadvantages

– Error-prone– Difficult to understand– Difficult to maintain

Recommendations

• Recommendations– Use tools (debuggers, etc.) to make programs more

reliable.– Use libraries of existing code (both to save time and

increase reliability).– Adopt a sensible set of coding conventions.– Avoid “tricks” and complicated code.

Demonstration

• Compiling

• Submitting