Characteristics




Historical Perspective

The C++ programming language was created by Bjarne Stroustrup and his team at Bell Laboratories (AT&T, USA) to help implement simulation projects in an object-oriented and efficient way. The earliest versions, which were originally referred to as “C with classes,” date back to 1980. As the name C++ implies, C++ was derived from the C programming language: ++ is the increment operator in C. 

As early as 1989 an ANSI Committee (American National Standards Institute) was founded to standardize the C++ programming language. The aim was to have as many compiler vendors and software developers as possible agree on a unified description of the language in order to avoid the confusion caused by a variety of dialects. 

In 1998 the ISO (International Organization for Standardization) approved a standard for C++ (ISO/IEC 14882). 

Characteristics of C++ 

C++ is not a purely object-oriented language but a hybrid that contains the functionality of the C programming language. This means that you have all the features that are available in C: 

■ universally usable modular programs 

■ efficient, close to the machine programming 

■ portable programs for various platforms. 


The large quantities of existing C source code can also be used in C++ programs. 

C++ supports the concepts of object-oriented programming (or OOP for short), which are: 


■ data abstraction, that is, the creation of classes to describe objects 

■ data encapsulation for controlled access to object data 

■ inheritance by creating derived classes (including multiple derived classes) 

■ polymorphism (Greek for multiform), that is, the implementation of instructions that can have varying effects during program execution. 

Various language elements were added to C++, such as references, templates, and exception handling. Even though these elements of the language are not strictly object-oriented programming features, they are important for efficient program implementation.