Getting Started with C Welcome to the sixth edition of Sams Teach Yourself C in 21 Days! Today’s lesson starts you toward becoming a proficient C programmer. Today you will learn: • Why C is a great choice among programming languages • The steps in the program development cycle • How to write, compile, and run your first C program • About error messages generated by the compiler and linker A Brief History of the C Language Why Use C? In today’s world of computer programming, there are many high-level languages to choose from, such as C, Perl, BASIC, Java, and C#. These are all excellent languages suited for most programming tasks. Even so, there are several reasons why many computer professionals feel that C is at the top of the list: • C is a powerful and flexible language. What you can accomplish with C is limited only by your imagination. The language itself places no constraints on you. C is used for projects as diverse as operating systems, word processors, graphi...