10.1. Background

The C++ programming language was developed by Bjarne Sroustrup at AT&T Bell Labs in the early 1980s. It was originally a collection of macros and libraries for C. Soon it was considered a programming language of its own. The primary addition to C was an object oriented paradigm.

Since C++ has its roots in C, it maintains the C philosophy of performance being a top priority. Concise representation, pointer arithmetic, omission of run-time checks and a simple memory model are hallmarks of C++, just as they are in C. Like C, the programmer is still responsible for pointer and memory management. Newer object oriented languages such as Python, Java, and C# place more emphasis on safety and robustness than performance. Thus C++ is thought of as a language which provides an object oriented framework, but places more responsibility on the programmer compared to new object oriented languages.

Although C++ is considered a harder language to program than say Python, it has the advantage of being a compiled language. So C++ programs run native in their hardware and operating system environment without the need of an eternal interpreter. The feature of being compiled with fast performance while picking up the object oriented design benefits, makes C++ a very popular language.

Here we will focus on C++’s additions to C and the object oriented features of C++.