Why should one learn C programming language?

Answer 1

C++ is a general purpose, cross platform, object oriented language that evolved from C. We learn it because although there are simpler high-level languages such as Java available, the amount of abstraction involved in these languages is both an advantage and a disadvantage. The advantage is that by separating the source code from the machine, you can write one program that can execute on many different machines, or platforms, without the need to compile separately upon each machine. The disadvantage is that the executable must be interpreted by a virtual machine, which translates the abstract instructions into machine-executable instructions. This results in greatly reduced performance and greater memory requires.

C++ code is just as portable as Java, but it requires a good deal more effort on the part of the programmer. However, the result is code that is comparable to that of assembly language in terms of efficiency, but with sufficient abstraction to produce machine code far more easily than with assembler alone. Although the learning curve is steeper than with Java, it is not as steep as that of assembler, and the skills learned from programming in C++ are highly transferable, largely due to the lower level of abstraction.

C++ is also the most popular language in use today thanks to its high performance and efficiency, and is particularly useful in developing operating system code, real time applications, games and such-like, as well as more general purpose uses. Newer languages such as Java have much in common with C++ (and much that is different), and although Java's popularity has grown, thanks to the mobile market and particularly in non-industrial applications (such as iPhone applets), C++ remains as popular as ever because, without C++, there would far fewer, newer platforms upon which to run Java applications.

Answer 2

C plus plus is a better checker of syntax and stricter about use and type of variables than the C Programming language. Also, C plus plus supports the object model, and C does not.

You can program in C plus plus using the C model and get better diagnostics about things you may be doing incorrectly according to the standard without using the object model feature.

Answer 3

C++ is the most widely-used language in use today. Although Java is arguably a more popular language, it is only useful for applications programming. C++ can be used to write everything from operating system kernels, drivers, applications (including development applications such as C++ itself) and embedded systems software.

Answer 4

C++ extends the usability of C, allowing far more complex data structures to be modelled more easily with a high-level of abstraction, whilst retaining the flexibility and low-level nature of C. Although languages such as Java are generally easier to work with, Java programs do not perform well compared to equivalent C++ programs. This is because C++ programs compile to native machine code and, like C, can exploit the underlying hardware more easily and more efficiently. By comparison, Java compiles to byte code that can be executed upon any machine that has a Java virtual machine implementation. While this makes it much easier to produce cross-platform programs, the performance penalty may not be desirable. Thus C++ is just as important today as it was in 1978 when Bjarne Stroustrup began development of what was initially named "C with Classes". He chose to evolve the new language from C because it was by far the most popular language of the day. All it really lacked was an object-oriented approach to programming. Although OOP languages existed at the time, the implementations were inefficient for the tasks he was assigned to perform, thus C++ evolved primarily to address those inefficiencies but quickly became a popular choice for a much wider-range of tasks, and has continued to evolve in order to keep pace with modern technologies.

Answer 5

Although C is a high-level programming language, the level of abstraction is much lower than in most other high-level languages. The language's instruction set is specifically designed to map very closely with that of the underlying architecture, thus making it the ideal programming language to quickly produce machine-readable code without resorting to the complexities of assembly language which is time-consuming, prone to human error and extremely difficult to maintain. However, C can also be used to quickly produce an assembly language source when can subsequently be modified by hand, if necessary, prior to final assembly. This makes C an extremely powerful tool.

With minor differences, C++ is a subset of C, incorporating a much higher-level of abstraction through the use of object oriented programming principals and template metaprogramming to generalise code, making it possible to produce extremely complex C and assembly language sources more quickly than is possible with C alone. There are very few cases where anything lower than C++ is actually required, however familiarity with both C and assembly language is essential in order to produce efficient machine code.

Ideally, new programmers should learn Java as early as possible as this introduces the programmer to object-oriented programming using a C-like syntax right from the start. Java is an applications programming language rather than a general purpose language, so its limitations will quickly become apparent. However, the skills learnt are largely transferable and will make learning C++ that much easier. This, in turn, makes C easier to learn. Assembly language is by far the hardest language to learn, but by learning the highest-level language first and gradually reducing the level the abstraction as the need for more control over the system is identified, the lower-level languages become that much easier to learn.

Answer 6

Although C is a high-level programming language, the level of abstraction is extremely low. Indeed, the only language lower than C is assembly language, which has very little in the way of abstraction. However, C can be used to produce an assembly source far quicker than we could produce the assembly source by hand. Moreover, the machine code output of C can be just as efficient as any hand-crafted assembly, to the extent we very rarely need to modify the assembly source.

Although C++ largely replaces C and allows us to more easily produce high-quality machine code than can be achieved with C alone, low-level programming still requires us to learn the fundamentals of C programming, particularly with respect to resource management through "naked" pointers. However, as with C, we very rarely need to resort to assembly programming, and the high-level abstractions, particularly resource handles and exception handling, make C++ much quicker and easier to work with compared to C, producing reusable code that is much easier to maintain.

Answer 7

It is one of the most common programming languages and the compiled programs run quite fast.