Introduction to C

C is a general-purpose, compiled programming language created by Dennis Ritchie at Bell Labs in 1972 to write the Unix operating system. It's small, fast, and close to the hardware.

C is still everywhere: • operating systems (Linux, Windows and macOS kernels), • embedded devices — cars, routers, medical devices, microcontrollers, • databases (SQLite, PostgreSQL, Redis) and language runtimes (Python is written in C).

Learning C teaches how computers really handle memory — knowledge that makes you better in every other language.