Shull 1

Damian Shull
Prof. Wolcott
ENC1102
29 September 2015
Genre Analysis Draft
In the world of programming there can be an infinite amount of languages because
programmers can develop new languages by building them off of prior languages. Even though
there is no definite amount of programming languages out in the world today, there is a bunch of
languages that programmers today use for different reasons. In my genre analysis i am going
focus on the programming language C and the discourse community that revolves around that
one language.
You may question why a programming language is just called C. Well, it was named after
the programming language B in the 1970s. The language was created by Dennis M. Ritchie, an
employee of Bell Labs, aka AT&T as of today. C was created because its predecessor did not
have the ability to produce structures within the code nor did B have data-types which are
essentially variables that computers know to decipher between which texts mean what. The
discourse community that involves the C language uses it mainly to provide low-level access to
memory, to provide language constructs that map efficiently to machine instructions, and to
require minimal run-time support. ("History of C? Why We Use C Programming Language)
Furthermore we are going to discuss the image in Appendix A. Ultimately the program
outputs a number at the end. Let me explain, the sample program is basically going to multiply
the variable index times variable m. Variable index starts at the number one until it

Shull 2

becomes greater than ten. Index++ means it's incrementing by 1 till it's no longer less than ten.
When it is no longer less than ten the program will multiply by the variable m which is one.
Since nine is the last number that is less than ten, the variable index equals nine and
since variable m equals one, nine times one equals nine therefore this sample program outputs
the number nine. People outside of the discourse community of programming would have no
idea what Appendix A is nor what it means. The reason why the discourse community uses
sample programs like these is to implicate the infinite amount of uses that can be used by simple
like these to find numbers within sequences for example.
Moving on, in Appendix B the image is simply the code for a program that checks if a
letter is a vowel or not. It asks the user to input a letter which is recorded and becomes checked
among the vowels in the known english alphabet. AEIOU Since those are the only vowels, it
checks the recorded character you entered and sees if it matches A, E, I,O, or U. If the
character the user entered equals to one of the vowels the program will tell you that it is a vowel.
If it's not a vowel it will tell you it is a consonant. The application for these programs could be
used to determine the number of vowels there are in a sentence or in words but this program is
the basis for determining vowels.
The similarities between the images have certain things in common but there is small
amount that are. For one thing they are written in the same language C. Both programs ultimately
print out something at the end. They also have the same syntax as they both contain indentations
and flow downwards. If you didn't notice already they both contain an include function that
looks like this #include. These helps the program know which functions to use whilst executing
the program, it is more of a compiler that helps compile the code when you want to run or use it.

Shull 3

Both programs also use variables in order to indicate data-types. In appendix A you can see the
words int those are data types. Appendix B has a data type as well which is char which
means character. Last thing that i think is a major similarity between the programs is the use of
curly brackets {}. These help tell the computer where the program is. In conclusion the discourse
community involved in this area relies on the knowledge from the language C in order to read
and use the language.
Obviously both programs don't compute the same thing. The amount of differences
between the two programs are enormous. To begin both programs utilize different #include
functions. The program in appendix A has #include <stdio.h> while Appendix B has
#include<iostream>. Between the carrots are functions, Appendix A stands for standard input
output and Appendix B stands for input output stream. As the programs descends the programs
begin to start having different dion from one another. All these are words bolded in dark blue are
variables and data types which represent functions and actions. Obviously we can see that
Appendix B is a lot smaller than Appendix A in the amount of lines of code each of them have.
In summation these are the major differences in the two programs.
The reason for my compare and contrasts of the two program was to make a point about
the discourse community that is involved with programming with this language. The
programming discourse community helps build all the software in technology in the world we
live in today. Every button you press is manually using software, every app you run is made by
code. Your whole phone is a mini computer that uses programs to run the everyday things you
need and use. My reference to the C language was that it was the basic code used to make all the
new languages and software that are today used in technology.
Appendix A

Shull 4

Appendix B

Shull 5

Works Cited

Shull 6

Thakur, Dinesh. "History of C? Why We Use C Programming Language."History of C? Why We

Use C Programming Language. Computer Notes, n.d. Web. 29 Sept. 2015.
Vowel Program. Computer software. Cprogramming.blogspot. Vers. C. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Sept.
2015. <http://fahad-cprogramming.blogspot.com/2012/08/switch-statement-in-cprogramming.html>.
"C++ Programming Tutorial for Beginners." Switch Statement in C++ Programming ~. N.p., n.d.
Web. 29 Sept. 2015. <http://fahad-cprogramming.blogspot.com/2012/08/switch-statement-in-cprogramming.html>