Abstract

The C++ language is to a high degree a faithful follower of Simula as an object-oriented language geared more toward software engineering than exploratory programming. I highlight several of its noteworthy good ideas. Like Simula, C++ is designed to be a general-purpose procedural language and not ‘‘purely’ ’ objectoriented; this is not counted as a mortal sin here. However, taking the weakly typed and weakly structured language C as a base has become an irremediable handicap. Low-level concerns have caused at least one crucial flaw also in the object-oriented properties of C++. These basic defects have not changed since I first explored the darker side four years ago. Most, although not all, of the numerous features and facilities that have later been added to the language are obvious improvements. At the same time, they have increased the complexity of C++ so that it is now well comparable to Ada. (Some new features are suggested even here, nevertheless.) It is regrettable indeed if C++ becomes the de facto standard of object-oriented programming, but this danger looks imminent today.

Citations

57	Mostly-Copying garbage collection picks up generations and C - Bartlett - 1989
2	Some Sad Remarks About String Handling in C - Abrahams - 1988