Technology

I do not own a desktop computer and have not for nearly seven years. Before that, my primary computer was a Dell desktop that my parents bought me as a college graduation present that I augmented with a small notebook computer (at a time when such small laptops were just a novelty).

Even without a desktop computer, my life is full of peripheral devices. Laptops these days are so powerful that most can easily accommodate an additional monitor (if not two), and working in this way usually requires a detached keyboard and mouse.

Today, my mouse’s batteries died. Unlike my keyboard, which is solar powered, my mouse runs on rechargeable batteries, and I often forget to recharge them. When I do, I’m left with just my laptop’s trackpad and a sense of frustration.

I rarely look at C while at the office. In many ways, it’s a language of a bygone era, especially when you’re talking about web application development. Sure, we take advantage of C every day, but write in it? Never.

However, I’ve become fairly proficient in it these past two years and have grown to appreciate the language for what it is: Blazing fast and fine-tuned for several specific use-cases. Unlike JavaScript (my language of choice while at work), C does not come with dozens of associated frameworks that come and go on a moment’s notice. It also doesn’t split its time between the hard logic of an application and managing the user interface. In many ways, C runs the world of computers around us without us even knowing.

The story behind C is the most interesting part of the language. Written in the late 60’s and launched into production around 1972/1973, C was born from necessity. In the late 60’s, Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson decided to write an operating system for the PDP-11, Unix (pictured above – it’s the size of a huge refrigerator and it’s processing power isn’t even close to the power of my phone).