Introducing C

Compared to an assembly language, C is a highly efficient language in which to write operating systems. C is more maintainable, and programmers are able to update the operating system and produce accurate code.

To achieve its efficiency, C has one drawback that other high-level languages don't: C is more cryptic than most other programming languages. Its cryptic nature comes in the form of a huge collection of operators and a small number of keywords. Table 13.1 lists C's keywords. The standard C language has only 32 keywords, an extremely small number compared to other languages such as Visual Basic. C relies on its assortment of operators to perform tasks more than other languages do; whereas Visual Basic may require three statements ...

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