C++ has had a phenomenal growth since it’s beginnings in the early 1980’s and has taken it’s place as one of the premier programming languages in use today. This paper examines the history, purpose and expectations of the C++ language and emphasizes the Object Oriented basis that has made C++ so popular.

Analysis Of The C++ Programming Language

Object Oriented Programming (OOP) is a software development paradigm that has passed the test of time. The key concepts if OOP, inheritance, polymorphism and encapsulation provide the programmer an abstraction that models the real world of objects or things. These key concepts came from simulation – the technology to simulate or model the real world in a computer. These concepts form the basis of the C++ computer language.

To find the origins of C++, one must travel around the world to a place that has spawned much original thought, Scandinavia, in particular, Norway. Here in the early 1960’s, Kristen Nygaard led a group of scientists in developing a radical new programming language (Holmevik, 1995) for simulation. This was to be “a precise language which allows a description of a network in terms of standard

Later, Simula became a more general purpose language through involvement and money from UNIVAC. The developers realized that the language needed “tools for expressing common properties between interrelated processes in the system” (Holmevik, 1995) – or inheritance. In addition, some of the “sophisticated simulation facilities embedded” in the early Simula where removed to form a more general purpose programming language and in 1967, Simula 67 was introduced. It became a very popular language that was ported to many of the platforms of the day, including IBM360/370’s, Control Data and DEC.

Many object oriented design methodologies exist including Booch, Shlaer-Mellor, Buhr, and Rumbaugh (Bray, 2001). These methodologies offer ways to abstract the system to the point that it is ready to program. To use C++ effectively, a large amount of time and effort is expended in the design effort before any actual C++ programming is done. These oriented design methodologies are used to obtain a design that is ready to program. The result of this design phase is to obtain a set of components or types that represent the “things” in the system. Object Oriented Programming is a data driven process – the interesting components are those that manipulate data or the data itself. Once the data is identified, these are represented in C++ by classes. C++ classes are based on the C language structure however they have an important distinction. C++ classes can express a hierarchy, store protected internal components and contain methods or functions that allow manipulation if the internal contents from outside of the class. The inheritance capability of classes allows classification of data and the organization of that data to take advantage of reusability and common capabilities. Individual objects or instances of these classes are then created and manipulated to model system behavior. Objects “communicate” between other objects via “messages” or methods that are carefully designed to allow only the “safe” or public interface of an object to be accessible.

Enter a quirky genius from America, Alan Kay (Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, Atari) who began to use Simula 67 in his effort produce an inexpensive notebook-sized personal c

Some topics in this essay:
Oriented Programming, Kristen Nygaard, C++ C++, Dennis Ritchie, Language Stroustrup, Programming OOP, Expectations C++, Rumbaugh Bray, Retrieved December, Bjarne Stroustrup, object oriented, programming language, retrieved december, 16 2002, december 16, december 16 2002, retrieved december 16, c++ programming, c++ programming language, c++ classes, based language, oriented design, language object oriented, oriented features, xerox palo alto,