C++ language

The C++ language first appeared in the early 1980s. It was designed and developed by Bjarne Stroustrup at AT&T laboratories. C++ is built on top of the C language, with a number of extensions. The most spectacular is probably its object layer, whose design was strongly influenced by the Simula 67 language. More than technical variations, it is above all the "spirit" of the two languages that separates C and C++. C is a portable assembler that covers a vast field of applications. C can be used to write very low-level programs, such as controllers for specialized hardware components, as well as more general-purpose programs such as graphical user interfaces. C allows very fine control of memory, which is one of the language's strong points. It also requires discernment and skill on the part of programmers, because with such capacity, all tricks are allowed! On the other hand, C++ borrows methodologies and techniques from software engineering. C++ was conceived as an alliance between the efficiency of C and the robustness of higher-level languages such as Ada or Eiffel. Where C advocates resourcefulness and hard-nosed pragmatism, C++ emphasizes software durability and reliability. This is reflected, for example, in the encouragement given to programmers to use abstract data types (classes), but also in a type system that is stricter than that of C. The ability of a C++ compiler to generate code that is almost as efficient as C has strongly influenced the design of the language. As a result, C++ is quite difficult to master, but on the other hand, a good knowledge of the language enables you to write highly efficient programs. This distinguishes it from many other advanced programming languages.

C++ probably built its success on C. By the time C++ appeared, C was already well established and the object-oriented programming craze was emerging. By presenting itself as an extension of the C language enabling object-oriented programming, it attracted many programmers. Despite the emergence in recent years of higher-level languages vying for its popularity, C++ is still one of the most widely used general-purpose languages at the start of this century.