Introduction to the C++ language.
The C++ language was created by Bjarne Stroustrup in the early 80s at Bell Laboratories. C++ can be seen as a super set of C, since it retains its speed, efficiency, ease of communication with hardware, and many other features, and adds support for the object-oriented programming paradigm. This language was created with the aim of solving some very rigorous event-driven simulations that would not have been possible in other languages due to the efficiency that C was characterized by.
Advantages of C++
Support for the object-oriented paradigm: One of the most notable advantages of C++ is its support for object-oriented programming. This allows for thinking about a problem in terms of a class, properties, and messages sent to each object.
Class constructors and data encapsulation: The most important element and vehicle of object-oriented programming are class constructors, which allow for encapsulating data declarations, initial values, and the set of operations on a class.
Constructors and destructors: C++ provides constructor and destructor methods to ensure the initialization and deallocation of variables and resources.
Messages: Messages or actions are the communication interface with objects. They allow for performing the actions defined in the class.
Friends: C++ allows defining a type of special functions that are friends of a specific class. This allows for accessing private properties and methods that are out of the scope of any other external function.
Operator overloading: In C++, it is possible to define functions with the same name but with different types of parameters. This is because certain functions can perform similar actions on different types of objects.
Derived classes: In C++, derived classes inherit all or some methods of the parent class, as well as its public and protected members, but not the private ones. Derived classes can also define their own methods.
Disadvantages of C++
Garbage collector: Like C, C++ does not have a garbage collector to clean up memory for variables or other objects used in program execution.
Syntactically strict: There is not much flexibility in writing programs in C++, which can sometimes make understanding the code difficult.
Security issues: C++ can pass certain errors unnoticed, just like C, regarding the assignment of values in memory. This can cause programs to corrupt other data used by themselves.
GUI and network: Access to user interface and network tools is not standardized, so it is often necessary to resort to third-party libraries without guaranteed interoperability.
When to use C++
It is recommended to use C++ in projects where performance is truly a key point. C++ is currently preferred for the development of video games, network tools, UNIX shell tools, as well as multipurpose programs on a platform.