Borland C++ Builder: The Complete Reference

All high-level programming languages support the concept of data types. A data
type defines a set of values that a variable can store along with a set of operations that
can be performed on that variable. Common data types are integer, character, and real.
Although C has several basic built-in data types, it is not a strongly typed language like
Pascal or Ada. In fact, C will allow almost all type conversions. For example, character
and integer types may be freely intermixed in most expressions. Traditionally C performs
no run-time error checking such as array-boundary checking or argument-type
compatibility checking. These checks are the responsibility of the programmer.
A special feature of C is that it allows the direct manipulation of bits, bytes, words,
and pointers. This makes it well suited for system-level programming, where these
operations are common. Another important aspect of C is that it has only 32 keywords
(5 more were added by C99, but these are not supported by C++), which are the
commands that make up the C language. This is far fewer than most other languages.
C h a p t e r 1 :
A n O v e r v i e w o f C
5
THE
FOUNDATION
OF
C++
Highest level
Ada
Modula-2
Pascal
COBOL
FORTRAN
BASIC
Middle level
C#
Java
C++
C
FORTH
Macro-assembly language
Lowest level
Assembly language
Table 1-1.