C++ gained its popularity in the 70s and is still the the fourth most popular programming language on the planet.If you are thinking about learning a C++ but confused if it is still used in the industry. We will address this question by highlighting the pros and cons of this language. Let us start our review of this programming language and if it matches you career path.
What is C++?
C++ is a general-purpose programming language designed to develop a wide variety of software in different domains. Bjarne Stroustrup created this language as an extension of C programming language. This language has significant changes over the period, and modern C++ supports object-oriented, generic and functional features.
It was designed to create large high-speed embedded systems. It also supports resource-constrained applications that includes desktop applications, video games applications or extensive programming applications such as space probes or telephone switches.
C++ History
In 1979, Bjarne Stroustrup developed a language named as “C with classes” as an advanced version of C having similar features of Simula language. Later, he named it as “C++” as the increment counter in C language. While doing his PhD thesis, he found Simula as the first object oriented but it was too slow for the practical use. Therefore, he created a C++ language, which can work as a high-level language without compromising the performance. In 80s and 90s, some major changes were released to bring a standard in this language.
Advantages and Disadvantages of C++ Language
C++ has its own pros and cons just like other programming languages. The following points will give you the clear perspective of using C++ language.
Advantages
Portability
C++ allows you to write code without any constraint of hardware resource. You can run the software from one platform to another platform. For example, if you are using the software on Windows platform and for some reason, you need to move it to Linux platform; you can easily change the OS.
Performance
C++ is a compiler-based programming language, which means that there is no need to install a software before running it, as they are already pre-interpreted.
Mid-level Programming Language
Being the mid-level programming language, it can work as a high-level programming language to develop games, desktop applications and other hand it can work as a low-level programming language to design kernels, drivers, etc.
Memory Management
The most dominant feature of C++ is the support of handling memory dynamically. It supports Dynamic Memory Allocation (DMA), which helps in managing free and unused space and memory in a program. Programmers can control the memory management directly as there is no Garbage Collection in this language.
Disadvantages
Pointers
C++ has a very tough concept of pointers as the uninitialized pointers can result a system failure. If two values are placed in the same pointer, it can corrupt the memory and the debugging is difficult in this language.
Less Flexible
C++ is not flexible when it comes to syntax, a little wrong code might end up in giving a series of errors. It generally takes more time to learn this language than any other language.
Lack of Garbage Collection
As mentioned above, C++ gives the complete control over memory management using DMA; therefore, it lacks the automatic garbage collection feature to manage unused space. It can also lead to unsafe memory management and undefined memory errors.
Built-In Threads
In C++, there is no support for built-in-in threads. However, it is added to the latest version of C++ by making it as a standard.
C++ and C
If you compare C++ with other modern programming language like C, you can see that it is a superset of C language so you can have similar functionality with add-on features in C++. If you want to develop a software that is going to make the most of the resources of computer like high-end video games, extensive computational programs, and interaction with the hardware directly, C and C++ are the languages that you can go for it.
Why You Should Learn C++?
Regardless of the advantages and disadvantages of C++, it is great to learn this language as it is one of the most widely used programming language to develop large and complex software. It gives you visibly faster results like javascript or python programming language. According to the TIOBE index, it stands at fourth index of popular language in the world.
