C

C is an extremely influential programming language closely tied to the Unix operating system. Descended from the earlier BCPL and B programming languages, it in turn spawned C++, C# and Objective-C, and had a strong influence on many other programming languages including Java and Perl. Such syntactic elements of C as the use of curly braces to surround program code blocks and the use of a single equal sign for assignment and a double equal sign for comparison were adopted in numerous languages.

Prior to the release of official standards for the language, the unofficial "standard" was the book The C Programming Language by Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie, published in 1978 and known to programmers as "K&amp;R".