Abstract
Programming languages are everywhere. They underpin our digital world, controlling everything from cameras to particle accelerators. Very early computers were controlled using physical modifications to the circuitry, rather than any kind of software interface. However, computer scientists soon realised that more sophisticated methods were needed, and by the late 1940s we had started to develop these formal languages that could be used to control our machines.
Nearly four decades later, Bjarne Stroustrup, a Danish computer scientist, began working on a new general purpose programming language called C++. Stroustrup found many existing languages either had features that were very helpful for large software development, but remained too slow for practical use, or were fast but too low-level to be suitable for large software development. He resolved to find a solution.
Several years later, in 1985, the first edition of “The C++ Programming Language” was released. More than three decades later, it remains one of the most popular and powerful programming languages in the world.
