Programming involves writing instructions for a computer in a coded language. Some of the earliest programming languages included FORTRAN from 1954 for scientific computing, Pascal from 1970 for teaching, and C from 1978 which is still widely used today. Programming languages can be classified as machine language, assembly language, or high-level languages. C is a powerful general-purpose language that is fast, portable, and available on all platforms. It uses header files, functions like printf and scanf, and data types like integers, floats, and characters. Programs written in C can produce logical errors with incorrect outputs or crash due to syntax errors in the code.