History of C++ Language

July 15, 2023

History of C++

Basically, the concept of C++ is introduced in the early ’80s (1982) by a software engineer Bjarne Stroustrup was doing work for his Ph.D. thesis in AT& T Bell Labs(American Telephone& Telegraph), located in Murray Hills, NewJersey, USA

The Birth of C++

In the early 1970s, Bjarne Stroustrup, a Danish computer scientist, developed a language called “C with Classes” as an extension to the C programming language. Stroustrup aimed to enhance C’s capabilities by adding support for object-oriented programming (OOP) concepts. This new language formed the foundation of what would later become C++.

The Evolution of C++

In 1983, the language was renamed to C++ to reflect the new features and improvements introduced over time. Stroustrup published “The C++ Programming Language,” a book that served as a comprehensive guide to the language and gained widespread popularity among programmers. The evolution of C++ continued with the release of various standards, each bringing new features, optimizations, and bug fixes to the language.

Definition of C++

According to Stroustrup C++ is a general-purpose, high-level, compiler-based and objected-oriented Programming Language.
Stroustrup is very interested in the C language because of its powerful features like –

Multipurpose programming,
Portability
Pointers
Dynamic memory allocation,
Midlevel flavour

Motivation from Simula67

The Major disadvantage of the C language is, data is freely moving around the functions.
Due to this, It is not able to design super secure applications because of the absence of data hiding features
To avoid this problem the concept of classes is added to traditional C language which was picked from Simula67
Hence It was named as C with classes initially.

Program to check Prime Number

Program to print Prime Number in range

Program to reverse a number

Program to check palindrome or not

Program to check armstrong number or not

Naming as C++

Initially, people call this language as

C with classes
Superset of C
Extension of C
Advanced version of C
Increment of C and many names…

To avoid this confusion in 1983 it was renamed as C++ from C with classes

Object-Oriented Programming

C++ main objective is to mix the flavors of data hiding with C to design super secure applications
Object Oriented programming is a programming style that is associated with the concept of Class, Objects and various other concepts revolving around these two, like Inheritance, Polymorphism, Abstraction, Encapsulation etc.
These ideas made C++ powerful to design both enterprise and system applications

The increment(++) operator in its name: It indicates that C++ is an extension of C language. due to this all the operators, data types, functions can be used in C++ as well

Trivia 50 - 70% of windows OS is still written in C++ since its very fast and provides very close interaction with hardware while still being a high level language

Trivia 2 Majority of the games are created and written in C++/C# because of the same reason again that it fast, efficient and provides concept of objects and classes to support real life coding scenarios .

Unity (game engine) and unreal engines which are two most popular platforms to write games are codes in C++/C#

Standardization and Portability

To ensure consistency and compatibility across different platforms, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) started working on standardizing the C++ language. The first standardized version, known as C++98 or C++03, was released in 1998. Subsequent revisions, such as C++11, C++14, C++17, and the latest C++20, brought numerous improvements, including enhanced language features, libraries, and performance optimizations.

C++’s standardized nature has contributed to its portability, allowing developers to write code that can run on various operating systems and architectures. This characteristic has made C++ a popular choice for building applications ranging from desktop software to embedded systems and game development.

C++ vs. Other Languages

When comparing C++ with other programming languages, several factors come into play. C++ excels in terms of performance, as it allows fine-grained control over system resources. It also provides a low-level programming model that enables developers to optimize code for speed and memory usage.

However, C++ complexity and syntax can be challenging for beginners or developers coming from higher-level languages. Moreover, languages like Python and JavaScript offer faster development cycles and greater simplicity for certain applications.

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