History of C++

Background History :

1. C++ Development started in 1979.
2. During the creation of Ph.D. thesis, Bjarne Stroustrup worked with language called Simula.
3. Simula is basically useful for the simulation work.
4. Simula was first language to support object-oriented programming paradigm
5. Bjarne Stroustrup identified that this OOP features can be included in the software development.
6. After that Bjarne Stroustrup started working on the C language and added more extra OOP features to the classic C.
7. He added features in such a fashion that the basic flavour of C remains unaffected.
8. C++ includes some add-on features such as classes, basic inheritance, in-lining, default function arguments, and strong type checking

In Detail.

In this first C++ programming language tutorial we are going to look at the history of the C++ language.

The C programming language was devised in the early 1970s by Dennis M. Ritchie an employee from Bell Labs (AT&T). (To view a brief history of the C language; click here).

Many other programming languages are derived from the C language. Some did well and some did not. The languages Objective-C and C++ for instance are derived from the C language.  Both languages add the “object oriented” element to the language C. One of the most recent languages, that used much of the C language, is Java.

The programming language C++ (originally named “C with Classes”) was devised by Bjarne Stroustrup also an employee from Bell Labs (AT&T). Stroustrup started working on C with Classes in 1979.

The idea of creating a new language originated from a wish, to do things, that were not possible with other languages. He had experience with the language Simula and BCPL (Simula is a slow language, but it had some features that were very helpful for large software development projects. BCPL was to low-level). So he chose to enhance the C language with Simula-like features, because the C language was fast and portable. Stroustrup did not only use features from Simula but also borrowed features from the languages Ada, CLU, ALGOL 68 and ML.

In 1983, the name of the language was changed from C with Classes to C++. (The ++ is C language operator). The first commercial release of the C++ language was in October of 1985. At the same time, the first edition of the book “The C++ Programming Language” was released. (Keep in mind that there was no official standard at that time. So the book became an important reference to the language). In 1989, version 2.0 was released of the C++ language.

In 1990, “The Annotated C++ Reference Manual” was published. This work became the basis for the future standard. (Keep in mind that there were additions to the language after 1990). In 1998, a joint ANSI-ISO committee standardized the C++ language.

Basic History of C++

1. During 1970 Dennis Ritchie created C Programming language.
2.  In the early 1980’s, also at Bell Laboratories, another programming language was created which was based upon the C language.
3. C++ is also called as C with classes
4. Stroustrup states that the purpose of C++ is to make writing good programs easier and more pleasant for the individual programmer.
5. C++ programming language is extension to C Language.
6. In C we have already used increment operator (++). Therefore we called C++ as “Incremented C” means Extension to C.

Versions of C++ Language

There are several versions of C++ Programming Language –

1. Visual C++
2. Borland C++
3. Turbo C++ 
4. Standardize C++ [ANSI C++]