When to Use C, and When Not To

C is a widely used, general-purpose language that has found use in many kinds of applications. Compiled languages inherently produce faster code than interpreted languages such as Perl or PHP. Another advantage of C is that because it is a relatively low-level language, a skilled programmer can write code that makes most efficient use of system resources. Provided that an application merits a slightly longer development time—such as applications that will be frequently or intensively used—C is an excellent candidate.

Because C is a compiled language, development time in C tends to be longer than with an interpreted language. The simple reason is that a C program must be compiled and linked each time a change is made, before it can be run and tested. With an interpreted program, you simply make your changes to the program and run it.

C lacks the memory management capabilities built into Perl and PHP. In C, you often need to write your own code for handling data structures that can grow dynamically. C also lacks most of the powerful text processing capability of Perl and PHP, whose routines are indispensable when building dynamic Web sites that process user input and other textual input.

All this means that C may not be the language of choice for building a dynamic Web site with multiple scripts making up the various pages of the site. However, it lends itself well to standalone and high-performance applications.