Introduction to C Programming

C programming is a foundational language in computer science, known for its efficiency and versatility. Developed by Dennis Ritchie in the early 1970s, C is widely used for system programming, embedded systems, and applications that require high performance. It’s a great language to start your coding journey due to its straightforward syntax and powerful features.

Setting Up Your Environment

To begin coding in C, you’ll need the following:

• A text editor (e.g., Visual Studio Code, Sublime Text).
• A C compiler (e.g., GCC for Linux/Mac or MinGW for Windows).

Once installed, ensure your compiler is accessible via the command line by typing gcc --version or gcc -v.

Writing Your First Program

Let’s write the classic “Hello, World!” program in C:

          
#include <stdio.h>

int main() {
    printf("Hello, World!\\n");
    return 0;
}
          
        

Save this file as hello.c, then compile and run it:

• To compile: gcc hello.c -o hello
• To run: ./hello

Congratulations! You’ve written and executed your first C program.

Next Steps

In the upcoming parts of this series, we’ll dive deeper into data types, control structures, functions, and memory management in C programming. Stay tuned for more hands-on tutorials!