C++ is an object-oriented programming langugage. it was developed by Bjarne Stroustup and his team at AT&T Bell Laboratory in Murray Hill, New Jersay. USA. in the early 1980's.

Main Idea of Stroustup was to add object-oriented features to C langugage without any significant changes to the C language itself. C++ is a superset of C, and that virtually any legal C program is a legal C++ program.

He wanted to combine the best of both the languages and create a more powerful language that could support object-oriented programming features and still retain the power and elegance of C. the result was C++.

Therefore, C++ is an extension of C with a major addition of class construct feature of Simula67.

Since the class was a major addition to the original C language, Stroustup decided to call his new language C with classes. However, later in 1983, the name was changed to C++. The idea of C++ comes from the C increment operator ++, thereby suggesting that C++ is an augmented (incremented) version of C.

During the early 1980's the langugage undewent a number of improvements and changes. The first commercial release of C++ was made in October 1985. In November 1997, the ANSI/ISO standard commitee standardised these changes and added several new features to the langugage specifications.

C++ is a superset of C. Most of what we know about C applied to C++ also. Therefore, almost all C programms are also C++ programs. However, there are a few minor differences that will prevent a C program to run under C++ compiler. we shal see these difference later as and when they are encountered.

The most important facilities that C++ adds to C are classes, inheritance, function overloading, and operator overloading. These features enable creating of abstract data types, winherit properties from existing data types and support polymorphism, thereby making C++ a truly object-oriented language.

The object-oriencted features in C++ allow programmers to build large programs with clarity, extensibility and ease of maintenance, incorporating the sprit and efficiency of C. The addition of new features has transformed C from a language that currently facilitates top-down, structured design, to one that provides bottom-up, object-oriented design.

Why learn C++?

I have already mention why you should learn C++ even though some are critisizing it and say it was dead which is not correct. because is among the language for handling very large programs. And it is suitable for virtually any programming task including development of editors, compilers, databases, communications systems and any complex real-life application systems.

Since C++ allows us to create hierarchy-related objects, we can build special object-oriented libraries which can be used later on by many programmers to reduce work load.

While C++ is able to map the real-world problem properly, the C part of C++ gives the language the ability to get close to the machine-level details.

Also C++ programs are easily maintainable and expandable. When a new feature needs to be implemented, it is very easy to add to the existing structure of an object.

It is expected that C++ will replace C as a general-purpose langugage in the near future.

Quiriousn to Get Start programming in C++, let dive deep in the next chapter.