Which general-purpose language was developed by Dennis Ritchie in the late 1960s and early 1970s and became one of the most widely used programming languages of all time?

• A. Cobol
• B. Basic (Beginner's All-Purpose) Symbolic Instruction Code
• C. C++
• D. C

Answer: (D)

Dennis Ritchie’s language was created in that era to give programmers a tool that was as close to the machine as needed for writing reliable, fast software, yet portable enough to run on different hardware. It was designed for system programming, with features that let you work directly with memory and data at a low level while still providing a clean, structured syntax. Its role in rewriting and shaping Unix made it incredibly influential: once Unix was implemented in this language, its portability and efficiency helped spread the language widely across many platforms and projects. Over time, C became the foundation for countless other languages and for a huge portion of software, from operating systems to embedded systems.

This language stands apart from the others listed. Cobol and Basic were developed for different purposes and contexts—business data processing and beginner-friendly teaching, respectively. C++ emerged later as an extension of C, created by a different programmer in the 1980s, rather than in the late 1960s or early 1970s.