C++ programming

C++ is a general-purpose programming language created by Bjarne Stroustrup as an extension of the C programming language, or "C with Classes". The language has expanded significantly over time, and modern C++ now has object-oriented, generic, and functional features in addition to facilities for low-level memory manipulation. It is almost always implemented as a compiled language, and many vendors provide C++ compilers, including the Free Software Foundation, LLVM, Microsoft, Intel, Oracle, and IBM, so it is available on many platforms.

C++ was designed with a bias toward system programming and embedded, resource-constrained software and large systems, with performance, efficiency, and flexibility of use as its design highlights. C++ has also been found useful in many other contexts, with key strengths being software infrastructure and resource-constrained applications, including desktop applications, video games, servers (e.g. e-commerce, Web search, or SQL servers), and performance-critical applications (e.g. telephone switches or space probes).

History

In 1979, Bjarne Stroustrup, a Danish computer scientist, began work on "C with Classes", the predecessor to C++.The motivation for creating a new language originated from Stroustrup's experience in programming for his PhD thesis. Stroustrup found that Simula had features that were very helpful for large software development, but the language was too slow for practical use, while BCPL was fast but too low-level to be suitable for large software development. When Stroustrup started working in AT&T Bell Labs, he had the problem of analyzing the UNIX kernel with respect to distributed computing. Remembering his Ph.D. experience, Stroustrup set out to enhance the C language with Simula-like features.

In 1982, Stroustrup started to develop a successor to C with Classes, which he named "C++" (++ being the increment operator in C) after going through several other names. New features were added, including virtual functions, function name and operator overloading, references, constants, type-safe free-store memory allocation (new/delete), improved type checking, and BCPL style single-line comments with two forward slashes. Furthermore, Stroustrup developed a new, standalone compiler for C++, Cfront.

In 1985, the first edition of The C++ Programming Language was released, which became the definitive reference for the language, as there was not yet an official standard.The first commercial implementation of C++ was released in October of the same year.

Features and philosophy

In 1989, C++ 2.0 was released, followed by the updated second edition of The C++ Programming Language in 1991.[19] New features in 2.0 included multiple inheritance, abstract classes, static member functions, const member functions, and protected members. In 1990, The Annotated C++ Reference Manual was published. This work became the basis for the future standard. Later feature additions included templates, exceptions, namespaces, new casts, and a Boolean type.

In 1998, C++98 was released, standardizing the language, and a minor update (C++03) was released in 2003. After C++98, C++ evolved relatively slowly until, in 2011, the C++11 standard was released, adding numerous new features, enlarging the standard library further, and providing more facilities to C++ programmers.

According to Stroustrup, "the name signifies the evolutionary nature of the changes from C". This name is credited to Rick Mascitti (mid-1983) and was first used in December 1983. When Mascitti was questioned informally in 1992 about the naming, he indicated that it was given in a tongue-in-cheek spirit. The name comes from C's ++ operator (which increments the value of a variable) and a common naming convention of using "+" to indicate an enhanced computer program. During C++'s development period, the language had been referred to as "new C" and "C with Classes" before acquiring its final name.

Syntax and semantics

C++ is standardized by an ISO working group known as JTC1/SC22/WG21. So far, it has published five revisions of the C++ standard and is currently working on the next revision, C++20. In 1998, the ISO working group standardized C++ for the first time as ISO/IEC 14882:1998, which is informally known as C++98. In 2003, it published a new version of the C++ standard called ISO/IEC 14882:2003, which fixed problems identified in C++98.

The next major revision of the standard was informally referred to as "C++0x", but it was not released until 2011.C++11 (14882:2011) included many additions to both the core language and the standard library. In 2014, C++14 (also known as C++1y) was released as a small extension to C++11, featuring mainly bug fixes and small improvements.The Draft International Standard ballot procedures completed in mid-August 2014.