Pogramming in C.

Hey there. I am working on BBB for my college project. i would like to interface various sensors to the board using GPIO and want to program in c/c++.
Do i need to flash the eMMc with linux image or can i directly start programming using putty software? Also can you tell me about any tutorials for the programming,if possible??
thanks.

If you can get a console via PuTTY you already have linux running.
Have a look at http://derekmolloy.ie/beaglebone-controlling-the-on-board-leds-using-c/
for a sample program and search the archives for more info.

yes you were right. We have already programmed with the beaglebone. its working fine. The derek molloy video we viewed was controlling the gpio using cpp programming.
Thanks for your help!!