Chapter 2. Some Fundamentals

THIS CHAPTER DESCRIBES SOME FUNDAMENTAL TERMS that you must understand before you can learn how to program in C. A general overview of the nature of programming in a higher-level language is provided, as is a discussion of the process of compiling a program developed in such a language.

Programming

Computers are really very dumb machines indeed because they do only what they are told to do. Most computer systems perform their operations on a very primitive level. For example, most computers know how to add one to a number or how to test whether a number is equal to zero. The sophistication of these basic operations usually does not go much further than that. The basic operations of a computer system form what is known ...

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