What Is the Difference Between C, C++, C#, and Objective-C?

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C is a programming language that you've undoubtedly heard of. C has been around for a long time, first appearing in 1972. Your PC most certainly has some C-coded applications. Perhaps even the entire operating system.

Then there's C++, but what distinguishes it from C? And the perplexity doesn't end there. C# and Objective-C are also available. Each of these programming languages is unique, although they are all connected in some way. The earliest of these languages was C, and the rest either expand or are built on it.

We'll look at the distinctions between these languages and how to learn more about them in the sections that follow.

The requirement for various programming languages :

Why would someone go to the bother of developing a new programming language based on another rather than using the original?

For starters, it makes the new language available to current language users. Second, it saves developers time since the key elements of the current language do not have to be developed from start.

Third, technology advances quickly. PCs today have greater processing power and RAM than computers from a decade ago. To stay up with technology, programming languages must be updated as hardware advances.

Programming language designers are always coming up with fresh ideas for how the language should work. They feel that these adjustments will increase performance and make the development process easier – and they are frequently correct. After all, we used to have to use punch cards to build computer programmes.

The following are some of the general differences across programming languages that prompted developers to design other versions of C.

Object-oriented vs. procedural :

Historically, most computer languages employed a procedural programming model. The FORTRAN, ALGOL, COBOL, and BASIC programming languages were among the first to arrive in 1957, and their functions featured a sequence of steps that were run in a precise order. Functions can be reused and can call other functions as well as themselves. C is a procedural programming language as well.

Object-oriented programming is another programming paradigm that is built on two data structures: objects and classes. In object-oriented languages, you may define a 'class' structure that reflects a real-world object and includes variables and methods. This structure may be used to make duplicates of itself over and over again.

For example, your software may have a 'User' class that stores information like as the user's first name, last name, and email address. It might also include tactics such as emailing a user. If you use this class to create a new user in your software, the new user object will have all of the data variables and methods that it requires. C++, Objective-C, and C# code may all be written in a procedural or object-oriented style.

Portability :

The ability of a programme to be built and operate on numerous platforms is referred to as software portability. As an example, consider Google Chrome. While the Windows version of Chrome cannot be executed on a Mac, all versions of the final executable software are produced from the same codebase. This is referred to as source code portability.

Using a compiler for that operating system, you may compile the code to operate on other operating systems. C and C++, for example, support source code portability. However, there is another sort of portability known as application portability. Portable apps may be transported from one environment to another and execute on any of them.

Java programmes are portable in this manner because of the Java Virtual Machine (JVM), which functions as an in-memory virtual computer in which Java applications execute. As a result, you may execute the same Java programme on Windows, Mac, or Linux as long as the environment has a JVM for that operating system installed.

C#, like Java, employs the application portability idea, but instead of a JVM, it employs a.NET common language runtime.

Language and syntax characteristics :

 

The syntax and features of programming languages differ. The syntax is a collection of rules that describe the symbols that must be used to define the code you're creating. Functions in C, for example, are enclosed by brackets, but functions in Python are written using indentation.

Except for Objective-C, all of the languages in this article use the C programming language syntax. For all non-object-oriented functions, Objective-C employs the same syntax as C. However, for objects, it has a syntax similar to that of another programming language known as Smalltalk.

The characteristics of a language can be applied to a wide range of situations. The manner in which the code referenced by a method is executed is a significant distinction between the C family of languages. Except for Objective-C, the method being called is tied to the part of the class where it is placed when the code is built in all of these languages. A message is delivered to the class at run-time in Objective-C and is resolved while the programme is executing.

As a result, in Objective-C, the called method has total control over how the action is handled. 

What is the definition of the C programming language? 

Dennis Ritchie created C in 1972 as a general-purpose, procedural programming language. Ritchie designed this new programming language by combining existing programming languages such as ALGOL, BCP, and B. He merged components that worked in those languages to develop C.

Until that moment, all operating systems were written in Assembly, the lowest-level programming language that may be used to communicate with a computer's hardware. Low-level languages are more difficult and often entail the use of many more symbols than programming languages you are already familiar with. However, because of the strength and flexibility of C, Linux version 4 became the first operating system created in a programming language other than Assembly.

C soon gained popularity because it was more easier to read, comprehend, and code than the other programming languages available at the time. C provided programmers with all of the performance that comes with low-level hardware manipulation, as well as the ability to do it in an understandable syntax.

Several additional languages, in addition to the C family, have utilised C as a guide. Some of the syntax that C pioneered is used by Java, PHP, JavaScript, Swift, and even Golang.

Although the other programming languages discussed in this article have mostly superseded C, it is still extensively used by developers who choose not to deal with the complexity and numerous subsets of the C++ programming language.

What exactly is C++ programming? 

C++ is a general-purpose programming language developed in 1985 by Bjarne Stroustrup to expand on the C language. It has all of C's low-level memory management tools, as well as the object-oriented programming paradigm.

While various members of the C family have replaced C in some applications, C++ is the most often used C alternative. In reality, in most circumstances, it is a straight substitute.

C++ is utilised in situations when performance is critical and low-level control over the system's resources is required. It is frequently used in the development of operating systems, video games, database applications, web browsers, and embedded devices.

The game development business has the biggest concentration of C++ developers, as the language's control over computer GPUs is unrivalled, allowing for the life-like 3D visuals shown in current video games. It's also a popular language for Internet of Things devices, where code interacts directly with specialised hardware.

What exactly is Objective-C programming?

              

Brad Cox and Tom Love created the Objective-C programming language in 1984. They saw the necessity to incorporate the object-oriented paradigm into the C programming language, but they used the Smalltalk language as a model.

This resulted in one of the most significant distinctions between this member of the C family and the others discussed in this article. Except when it comes to creating or manipulating objects, most of the syntax in Objective-C is comparable.

The rights to Objective-C were purchased by NeXT, who utilised it in a bespoke programming platform called OpenStep. Apple purchased NeXT in 1996 and included OpenStep into its new operating system, Mac OSX.

The majority of Apple's current Cocoa API is built on OpenStep, while Xcode is built on NeXT's Objective-C development tool. Objective-C swiftly became the programming language for Apple devices, and it remains so to this day.

By 2014, when Swift was launched, Objective-C had remained mostly unmodified over the preceding 40 years, despite significant advances in programming language development. Swift is compatible with Objective-C (meaning it may run alongside it in the same programme), plus it is significantly quicker and easier to build. Apple finally proposed that developers adopt Swift instead of Objective-C, which has been steadily declining since then.

What exactly is C# programming ?

             

C#, like all of the other C programming language offspring discussed in this article, is an object-oriented, general-purpose language. Microsoft launched C# in 2000, incorporating features from both Java and C. Rather than being built to operate on a specific operating system, C# was compiled to run on the.NET standard language runtime, similar to how Java was compiled to run on the JVM. More contrasts between C# and C++ may be found in C# vs. C++.

C# was originally a closed-source programming language meant to operate on Windows. It was used to create desktop apps for Windows as well as server-side applications for Windows servers. It's also the most often utilised language in ASP.NET programming.

However, in 2014, Microsoft published C# as free and open-source software, with binaries available for both Linux and Mac OS X. Since then, it has been employed in game development and online service development, making C# a widely used language on all popular operating systems.