## TL;DR

C is a general-purpose, procedural programming language created by Dennis Ritchie at Bell Labs between 1969-1973. It is the foundation of modern computing: Unix/Linux kernels, Windows, macOS, embedded systems, and the reference implementations of Python, Ruby, and Node.js are written in C. Standardized by ISO (C23 is the latest, 2024), C remains essential for systems programming, operating systems, and performance-critical applications where direct memory access and minimal runtime overhead are required.

## Core Features

- **Manual memory management**: `malloc`/`free`, no garbage collector
- **Pointers**: Direct memory addressing — power and danger
- **Preprocessor**: Macros, conditional compilation (`#define`, `#ifdef`)
- **Static typing**: Compile-time type checking
- **Portability**: Write once, compile anywhere (with discipline)
- **Minimal runtime**: No garbage collector, no exception handling, no runtime type info

## Further Reading

- [K&R — The C Programming Language](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_C_Programming_Language): The definitive book