A Brief History of C++

The C++ programming language was introduced by Bjarne Stroustrup of the AT&T laboratories in 1985 as an extension of C, with additional features borrowed from the esoteric language Simula. Since then, C++ has grown rapidly in response to the practical need for a programming language that is able to efficiently handle composite and diverse data types. The language implementation is pivoted on the ingenious concept of object oriented programming (OOP). Today, C++ dominates the commercial market and is favored among system programmers and application developers.

C++ is a generalization of C, but accomplishes much more than C, to the extent that it should be regarded, studied, and taught as a separate language. It is neither necessary nor recommended to study C as a prerequisite of C++, though knowledge of C can be helpful.