"C++ programming language: How it became the invisible foundation for everything, and what's next"

[Lynn McGuire]

"C++ programming language: How it became the invisible foundation for
everything, and what's next"

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/c-programming-language-how-it-became-the-invisible-foundation-for-everything-and-whats-next/

"Powerful, flexible, complex: The origins of C++ date back 40 years, yet
it remains one of the most widely used programming languages today.
TechRepublic spoke to C++ creator, Bjarne Stroustrup, to find out why."

Lynn

[olcott]

C++ is great. I met Bjarne Stroustrup back when he was still going
around the country promoting his new language.

In all these years I have only used encapsulation and the standard
template library. I think of C++ as if it was OOP improvement over C.
I think of C as a third generation language portable assembly language.



--
"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre
minds." Einstein

[Lynn McGuire]

In our Windows user interface approaching 500K lines of code, we have
617 classes. Works well. And we only use the STL also.

Lynn

[Brian Wood]

It's an important language, but to say it's the "foundation
for everything" is a bit much. And I'm not sure how it's
more invisible than other compiled languages.


Brian
Ebenezer Enterprises - Enjoying programming again.
https://github.com/Ebenezer-group/onwards

[see.my....@gmail.com]

> It's an important language, but to say it's the "foundation
> for everything" is a bit much.

Considering that C++ is used to write operating systems (I read Windows had C++ code in it since v. 1.0), database servers, virtual machines (like Java), interpreters, whole computing systems (like Mathematica), web browsers, most of the gaming engines and AI frameworks - yes, it is a foundation for "everything", with a reasonably wide meaning of this word.
I cannot think of any other language that would deserve this name more.

Note that this has nothing to do with liking or disliking this language. Although, apparently, this state is the result of quite many people liking it.

--
Maciej Sobczak * http://www.inspirel.com

[daniel...@gmail.com]

On Tuesday, November 17, 2020 at 2:21:18 PM UTC-5, see.my....@gmail.com wrote:

> Considering that C++ is used to write operating systems (I read Windows had C++ code in it since v. 1.0), database servers, virtual machines (like Java), interpreters, whole computing systems (like Mathematica), web browsers, most of the gaming engines and AI frameworks - yes, it is a foundation for "everything", with a reasonably wide meaning of this word.
> I cannot think of any other language that would deserve this name more.
>

At the lower levels, I'm pretty sure there is more C code than C++ code.

Daniel

[Lynn McGuire]

I ran Windows 1.0 on a Compaq in 1985 when a salesperson came by for a
demo. I highly doubt that it had any C++ in it since the first CFront
was started in 1982. There was not a commercial release of C++ until 1985.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%2B%2B

Lynn

[Lynn McGuire]

[Öö Tiib]

Microsoft wrote most things in C and its QuickC was quite weak C++ toolset.
It was still QuickC in start of nineties IIRC. The tools and compilers of Watcom
and Borland were preferred by many for DOS and Windows back then.

[Melzzzzz]

C++ is pretty good professional tool. I can finish jobs on time :P


--
current job title: senior software engineer
skills: c++,c,rust,go,nim,haskell...

press any key to continue or any other to quit...
U ničemu ja ne uživam kao u svom statusu INVALIDA -- Zli Zec
Svi smo svedoci - oko 3 godine intenzivne propagande je dovoljno da jedan narod poludi -- Zli Zec
Na divljem zapadu i nije bilo tako puno nasilja, upravo zato jer su svi
bili naoruzani. -- Mladen Gogala

[Melzzzzz]

C code is in C++ code ;)

[Melzzzzz]

C++ took of after 1998, I really doubt it was use for something
seriously (besides GUI) before that...
>
> Lynn

[Melzzzzz]

I remember quikC for DOS it was plain C? Borland Turbo was also weak.
Until 1998 C++ was bah...

[Öö Tiib]

There was some kind of C++ compiler in QuickC but it was weird. MS changed
the name to Visual C++ when it started to support 32 bit ... 1993 I think.
It all felt just a bit like hobby about like Rust is now.
Indeed 1998 it was all standardized and Microsoft caught up others with
its Visual C++ 6.0 that was solid product.

[Bonita Montero]

>> Daniel

> C code is in C++ code ;)

Most thinks you can do in C work the same in C++, but not
everything. And most things you do in C are used to be done
in a different way in C++ when you program paradigmatically.

[Alf P. Steinbach]

On 19.11.2020 12:12, Öö Tiib wrote:
> On Thursday, 19 November 2020 at 10:08:27 UTC+2, Melzzzzz wrote:

>>> [snip]

>> I remember quikC for DOS it was plain C? Borland Turbo was also weak.
>> Until 1998 C++ was bah...
>
> There was some kind of C++ compiler in QuickC but it was weird. MS changed
> the name to Visual C++ when it started to support 32 bit ... 1993 I think.
> It all felt just a bit like hobby about like Rust is now.
> Indeed 1998 it was all standardized and Microsoft caught up others with
> its Visual C++ 6.0 that was solid product.

Visual C++ 6.0 was pre-standard.

Microsoft didn't get half up to speed until 2003 with Visual Studio.NET,
as I recall.


- Alf

[James Kuyper]

On 11/19/20 3:08 AM, Melzzzzz wrote:
...

> I remember quikC for DOS it was plain C? Borland Turbo was also weak.
> Until 1998 C++ was bah...
>

Because the last proper word of that sentence is "was", I'm not sure
what you're actually trying to say. As a result, the following comment
might or might not be relevant: C++ was a well-established and fairly
popular language long before it first got standardized in 1998.

[Melzzzzz]

It was popular, but useless.

[James Kuyper]

On 11/19/20 12:15 PM, Melzzzzz wrote:
> On 2020-11-19, James Kuyper <james...@alumni.caltech.edu> wrote:
...
>> Because the last proper word of that sentence is "was", I'm not sure
>> what you're actually trying to say. As a result, the following comment
>> might or might not be relevant: C++ was a well-established and fairly
>> popular language long before it first got standardized in 1998.
>
> It was popular, but useless.

It was frequently used, and for serious software, which is inconsistent
with it being useless.

I'm curious - why do you think it was useless? It had all of the useful
features of C90, which at the time was one of the most widely used
programming languages, and you can write C++ code that uses only those
features, so I don't see how it could have been any less useful than C90.

Also, what is the basis for your claim that it "took off" after
standardization? The closest think I'm aware of to relevant objective
evidence is the Tiobe index (despite it's many flaws), which doesn't go
back that far. If all you have is anecdotal evidence, that might say a
lot more about you than it does about C++. My own experience (which is
certainly only anecdotal), is that standardization improved the
usefulness and popularity of the language somewhat, but not to the
radical extent that you imply.

[Scott Lurndal]

James Kuyper <james...@alumni.caltech.edu> writes:
>On 11/19/20 12:15 PM, Melzzzzz wrote:
>> On 2020-11-19, James Kuyper <james...@alumni.caltech.edu> wrote:
>...
>>> Because the last proper word of that sentence is "was", I'm not sure
>>> what you're actually trying to say. As a result, the following comment
>>> might or might not be relevant: C++ was a well-established and fairly
>>> popular language long before it first got standardized in 1998.
>>
>> It was popular, but useless.
>
>It was frequently used, and for serious software, which is inconsistent
>with it being useless.

Indeed, we wrote a distributed Unix operating system in C++ from 1989 to 1997 for a
massivly parallel computer.

[Richard]

[Please do not mail me a copy of your followup]

Melzzzzz <Melz...@zzzzz.com> spake the secret code
<XHptH.8336$7b79...@fx25.ams4> thusly:

>C++ took of after 1998, I really doubt it was use for something
>seriously (besides GUI) before that...

You are wrong. C++ was used for plenty of stuff. I know because I
was one of the people doing it.
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" free book <http://tinyurl.com/d3d-pipeline>
The Terminals Wiki <http://terminals-wiki.org>
The Computer Graphics Museum <http://computergraphicsmuseum.org>
Legalize Adulthood! (my blog) <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>

[Ian Collins]

On 19/11/2020 21:06, Melzzzzz wrote:
>
> C++ took of after 1998, I really doubt it was use for something
> seriously (besides GUI) before that...

It was. My first "professional" (paid!) C++ project, hardware
simulation, was in the early 90s.

--
Ian.

[Melzzzzz]

Dunno, I started to learn C++ in 1993, gcc 2.95.2 was buggy as hell,
and that was after 1998. ;)
In 1993, nah C++ compilers were...

[James Kuyper]

On 11/19/20 11:22 PM, Melzzzzz wrote:
...

> Dunno, I started to learn C++ in 1993, gcc 2.95.2 was buggy as hell,
> and that was after 1998. ;)
> In 1993, nah C++ compilers were...

1993 was after 1998?

I have no idea what your "..." is supposed to mean in this context.

[Öö Tiib]

On Friday, 20 November 2020 at 06:23:19 UTC+2, Melzzzzz wrote:
> On 2020-11-19, Ian Collins <ian-...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > On 19/11/2020 21:06, Melzzzzz wrote:
> >>
> >> C++ took of after 1998, I really doubt it was use for something
> >> seriously (besides GUI) before that...
> >
> > It was. My first "professional" (paid!) C++ project, hardware
> > simulation, was in the early 90s.
> Dunno, I started to learn C++ in 1993, gcc 2.95.2 was buggy as hell,
> and that was after 1998. ;)
> In 1993, nah C++ compilers were...

The gcc was not only buggy or strange C++ compiler. The one on
Mac supported length prefixed strings like in Pascal IIRC. Things
were chaotic. But in general the C++ compilers gave more
diagnostics than C compilers and banned several questionable
usages. Classes let to manage deeper data hierarchies
and resources more conveniently. It also opened new ways to be
inefficient but for that there were profilers. After templates were
added then C felt sometimes too crippling ... too much
copy-paste to use.

[Melzzzzz]

Rellic from the past was throwing exceptions buy pointer and overloading
global new operator... I work now witj these quircks from early
nineties. Also throwing exception from so libray was no no.
templates were horror.
I really don't get how you do not understand what I say?
After 1998 compilers were bad and in 1993+ horror...

[Melzzzzz]

I liked C++ as it was less coding, much less then C.
And interfaces simpler. Hell, majority of work was to hide
awfull C apis...

[Scott Lurndal]

Melzzzzz <Melz...@zzzzz.com> writes:
>On 2020-11-19, Ian Collins <ian-...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> On 19/11/2020 21:06, Melzzzzz wrote:
>>>
>>> C++ took of after 1998, I really doubt it was use for something
>>> seriously (besides GUI) before that...
>>
>> It was. My first "professional" (paid!) C++ project, hardware
>> simulation, was in the early 90s.
>
>Dunno, I started to learn C++ in 1993, gcc 2.95.2 was buggy as hell,
>and that was after 1998. ;)
>In 1993, nah C++ compilers were...

cfront-based, for the most part.

We used cfront + pcc (generating code for the motorola 88100 cpu).

[Ian Collins]

On 20/11/2020 17:22, Melzzzzz wrote:
> On 2020-11-19, Ian Collins <ian-...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> On 19/11/2020 21:06, Melzzzzz wrote:
>>>
>>> C++ took of after 1998, I really doubt it was use for something
>>> seriously (besides GUI) before that...
>>
>> It was. My first "professional" (paid!) C++ project, hardware
>> simulation, was in the early 90s.
>
> Dunno, I started to learn C++ in 1993, gcc 2.95.2 was buggy as hell,
> and that was after 1998. ;)
> In 1993, nah C++ compilers were...

No worse and often better then the embedded C compilers we had to use!
We used Sun Workshop.

--
Ian.

[Jorgen Grahn]

On Thu, 2020-11-19, Melzzzzz wrote:
> On 2020-11-19, James Kuyper <james...@alumni.caltech.edu> wrote:
>> On 11/19/20 3:08 AM, Melzzzzz wrote:
>> ...
>>> I remember quikC for DOS it was plain C? Borland Turbo was also weak.
>>> Until 1998 C++ was bah...
>>>
>>
>> Because the last proper word of that sentence is "was", I'm not sure
>> what you're actually trying to say. As a result, the following comment
>> might or might not be relevant: C++ was a well-established and fairly
>> popular language long before it first got standardized in 1998.
>
> It was popular, but useless.

Let's settle for "much less useful". I'm so thankful for the STL; it
shaped the way I design my code today. I remember having a hard time
understanding how it was supposed to work, though.

/Jorgen

--
// Jorgen Grahn <grahn@ Oo o. . .
\X/ snipabacken.se> O o .

[Richard]

[Please do not mail me a copy of your followup]

Melzzzzz <Melz...@zzzzz.com> spake the secret code

<CwHtH.79154$LMma....@fx47.ams4> thusly:

>On 2020-11-19, Ian Collins <ian-...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> On 19/11/2020 21:06, Melzzzzz wrote:
>>>
>>> C++ took of after 1998, I really doubt it was use for something
>>> seriously (besides GUI) before that...
>>
>> It was. My first "professional" (paid!) C++ project, hardware
>> simulation, was in the early 90s.
>
>Dunno, I started to learn C++ in 1993, gcc 2.95.2 was buggy as hell,
>and that was after 1998. ;)
>In 1993, nah C++ compilers were...

Widespread adoption of gcc came much later. We (and I assume most
others) were using commercial compilers, not gcc.

[Melzzzzz]

On 2020-11-24, Richard <legaliz...@mail.xmission.com> wrote:
> [Please do not mail me a copy of your followup]
>
> Melzzzzz <Melz...@zzzzz.com> spake the secret code
><CwHtH.79154$LMma....@fx47.ams4> thusly:
>
>>On 2020-11-19, Ian Collins <ian-...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>> On 19/11/2020 21:06, Melzzzzz wrote:
>>>>
>>>> C++ took of after 1998, I really doubt it was use for something
>>>> seriously (besides GUI) before that...
>>>
>>> It was. My first "professional" (paid!) C++ project, hardware
>>> simulation, was in the early 90s.
>>
>>Dunno, I started to learn C++ in 1993, gcc 2.95.2 was buggy as hell,
>>and that was after 1998. ;)
>>In 1993, nah C++ compilers were...
>
> Widespread adoption of gcc came much later. We (and I assume most
> others) were using commercial compilers, not gcc.

Which were worse then gcc..

[daniel...@gmail.com]

On Tuesday, November 24, 2020 at 12:17:56 PM UTC-5, Richard wrote:

> Widespread adoption of gcc came much later. We (and I assume most
> others) were using commercial compilers, not gcc.
> --

Yes, and on UNIX, C compilers were free, but commercial C++ compilers were
expensive. That was a factor in its adoption.

On Windows, Visual C++ was usable by 1992, and became quite popular.

Daniel

[Scott Lurndal]

Melzzzzz <Melz...@zzzzz.com> writes:
>On 2020-11-24, Richard <legaliz...@mail.xmission.com> wrote:
>> [Please do not mail me a copy of your followup]
>>
>> Melzzzzz <Melz...@zzzzz.com> spake the secret code
>><CwHtH.79154$LMma....@fx47.ams4> thusly:
>>
>>>On 2020-11-19, Ian Collins <ian-...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>> On 19/11/2020 21:06, Melzzzzz wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> C++ took of after 1998, I really doubt it was use for something
>>>>> seriously (besides GUI) before that...
>>>>
>>>> It was. My first "professional" (paid!) C++ project, hardware
>>>> simulation, was in the early 90s.
>>>
>>>Dunno, I started to learn C++ in 1993, gcc 2.95.2 was buggy as hell,
>>>and that was after 1998. ;)
>>>In 1993, nah C++ compilers were...
>>
>> Widespread adoption of gcc came much later. We (and I assume most
>> others) were using commercial compilers, not gcc.
>Which were worse then gcc..

Upon what basis do you make that claim? Did you use Diab Data's C++
compiler for the 88100? Did you use any of USL's SGS compilers? How
about Sun compilers? Or SGI compilers? How about greenhills?

[David Brown]

On 24/11/2020 19:39, daniel...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Tuesday, November 24, 2020 at 12:17:56 PM UTC-5, Richard wrote:
>
>> Widespread adoption of gcc came much later. We (and I assume most
>> others) were using commercial compilers, not gcc.
>> --
> Yes, and on UNIX, C compilers were free, but commercial C++ compilers were
> expensive. That was a factor in its adoption.
>

This was also very common in the embedded world. Typically C compilers
came with a limited free version (with the limit normally being the
total size of the binary file, but sometimes also limited features or
optimisation). For various prices you could get increased limits, and
then there would be a very expensive license for unlimited size, that
also enabled C++.

[Jorgen Grahn]

On Tue, 2020-11-24, daniel...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Tuesday, November 24, 2020 at 12:17:56 PM UTC-5, Richard wrote:
>
>> Widespread adoption of gcc came much later. We (and I assume most
>> others) were using commercial compilers, not gcc.
>> --
> Yes, and on UNIX, C compilers were free, but commercial C++ compilers were
> expensive. That was a factor in its adoption.

IIRC, C compilers were not free either: you'd get a compiler with the
OS, but it wouldn't support ANSI C.

[Richard]

[Please do not mail me a copy of your followup]

Melzzzzz <Melz...@zzzzz.com> spake the secret code

<LzbvH.66951$O777....@fx18.ams4> thusly:

>On 2020-11-24, Richard <legaliz...@mail.xmission.com> wrote:
>> [Please do not mail me a copy of your followup]
>>
>> Melzzzzz <Melz...@zzzzz.com> spake the secret code
>><CwHtH.79154$LMma....@fx47.ams4> thusly:
>>
>>>On 2020-11-19, Ian Collins <ian-...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>> On 19/11/2020 21:06, Melzzzzz wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> C++ took of after 1998, I really doubt it was use for something
>>>>> seriously (besides GUI) before that...
>>>>
>>>> It was. My first "professional" (paid!) C++ project, hardware
>>>> simulation, was in the early 90s.
>>>
>>>Dunno, I started to learn C++ in 1993, gcc 2.95.2 was buggy as hell,
>>>and that was after 1998. ;)
>>>In 1993, nah C++ compilers were...
>>
>> Widespread adoption of gcc came much later. We (and I assume most
>> others) were using commercial compilers, not gcc.
>Which were worse then gcc..

No, they weren't. Software teams aren't stupid. They wouldn't spend
money on compilers that were inferior to free compilers.

[Juha Nieminen]

Melzzzzz <Melz...@zzzzz.com> wrote:
> Dunno, I started to learn C++ in 1993, gcc 2.95.2 was buggy as hell,
> and that was after 1998. ;)

For some reason there are certain versions of gcc that became really
ubiquitous and persisted in widespread use for much, much longer than
significantly newer and improved versions of the compiler became
available. gcc 2.x was one of them. It persisted for an inordinate
number of years in many systems, long after it had been superseded
by much newer versions.

Eventually it was phased out of most systems. However, for some reason
gcc 4.x seems to now be the holdout that refuses to die. There are
still, to this day, many Linux systems out there that have gcc 4.x
as their only compiler, and for some reason refuse to upgrade.

gcc 4.x has partial C++11 support, which makes it a pain to compile
any program that uses the C++11 (or newer) features that it doesn't
implement. At least it's not as bad as gcc 2.9, but still...

[Öö Tiib]

On Thursday, 26 November 2020 at 11:09:14 UTC+2, Juha Nieminen wrote:
>
> gcc 4.x has partial C++11 support, which makes it a pain to compile
> any program that uses the C++11 (or newer) features that it doesn't
> implement. At least it's not as bad as gcc 2.9, but still...

Yes, the C++11 support in it is not only partial but has several known
defects in sense that valid programs crash. But perhaps there are
reasons why they can not upgrade.
C++17 for example was quite damaging standard and newer compilers
for some reason broke C++14 features even in C++14 mode to comply
with that broken standard.
Also the issues can possibly be like for example too aggressive
optimizations that break some sanity checks of undefined
behavior and the like.

[Jorgen Grahn]

On Thu, 2020-11-26, Juha Nieminen wrote:
> Melzzzzz <Melz...@zzzzz.com> wrote:
>> Dunno, I started to learn C++ in 1993, gcc 2.95.2 was buggy as hell,
>> and that was after 1998. ;)
>
> For some reason there are certain versions of gcc that became really
> ubiquitous and persisted in widespread use for much, much longer than
> significantly newer and improved versions of the compiler became
> available. gcc 2.x was one of them. It persisted for an inordinate
> number of years in many systems, long after it had been superseded
> by much newer versions.
>
> Eventually it was phased out of most systems. However, for some reason
> gcc 4.x seems to now be the holdout that refuses to die. There are
> still, to this day, many Linux systems out there that have gcc 4.x
> as their only compiler, and for some reason refuse to upgrade.

I think the reason is Red Hat Enterprise Linux (and CentOS, and all
other distributions which want to be binary-compatible with it).
Release 7 came in 2014 and is still supported. Release 8 came in 2019
and I guess a lot of organizations haven't migrated. And of course
the longer you wait, the harder it gets.