In an interview, C++ designer Bjarne Stroustrup says the programming language remains vital and relevant 35 years after he first designed it in 1979 because of its ability to handle complexity, making it the go-to solution for telecom, financial, and embedded applications and online systems such as Amazon and Google. Stroustrup says Google’s Go language, which has been receiving a great deal of attention, can “do a few things elegantly,” but loses “the edge in performance.” Stroustrup says he used C++ for projects that “required a real programming language and real performance,” by way of noting the language is more suitable for large-scale projects than small apps or hobbyists. Stroustrup says he is continuing to work to build the capabilities of C++ with the release of a new minor edition, C++ 14, this year. The update offers several improvements, including new templates and better memory initialization. Asked what role security should play in software development, Stroustrup says, “security is a systems issue.” He also calls for greater professionalism among software programmers. “There are things in our society that mustn’t break, and most of them depend on software,” he says.
Stroustrup: Why the 35-year-old C++ still dominates ‘real’ dev | Application development – InfoWorld.