ry nature of the changes from C.” The “++” is an operator in both C and C++; it is the increment operator (Stroustrup, 10) (i.e. if you have an integer i and you wanted to add 1 to its value, you could say “i++;”). The name is not “C+” as it is both a syntax error in the language of C and is the name of a completely unrelated language [there were at last count around 4000 different languages (Parsons)]. The “++” operator can also be used before the integer (“++i;”) - this increments i before any testing is done - “Connoisseurs of C semantics find C++ inferior to ++C” (Stroustrup, 10). The language is not called D because “it is an extension of C, and it does not attempt to remedy problems by removing features” (Stroustrup, 10).How did the language become so popular among programmers?Explosive growth in the academic and business communities led to the need of a standardization of C++. AT&T Bell Laboratories allowed Stroustrup to “share drafts” of revised versions of his language’s reference manual with implementers of the language’s compilers and the users of his language. There have been a few standardizations of C++ the most recent update to a standardization was by the ISO in 1998.How is C++ used today?Compilers and Powerful ApplicationsCompilers are tools that translate the source code of a programming language, such as C++, into machine language - a language readable and interpreted by the computer. When this interpretation takes place, individual words (segments of 4 bytes - like the number 0F03 in the hexadecimal, or base-16 counting system) are read by the computer and are executed (“Computer languages”), producing, well, what you see when you “double click” on an icon in Windows, for example.There are many different compilers available for every major operating system. For Windows machines, th...
