C and C++ are one of the common programmings languages that are popularly used to develop applications on various platforms. C was initially introduced between the years 1972-1974. It was developed as a successor the B, C languages by Dennis Ritchie to construct utilities running on UNIX.
C (Programming language):
C is considered to be general-purpose and a popular programming language that is used to develop applications on various platforms. It widely supports the structured programming, lexical variable scope, and recursion, with a static type system. In simple words, C as a programming language provides different constructs that map efficiently to typical machine instructions. It also lasts in applications that used to run on assembly language. These applications include different operating systems as well as other application software for computer architectures that range from supercomputers to embedded systems.
To be precise, C is an imperative procedural language that was specifically designed to provide little access to memory and language constructs that map efficiently to machine instructions. C allows you to perform more than one assignment that can be performed with a single statement. It has a large number of arithmetic, bitwise and logic operators. C as a programming language has a small yet fixed number of keywords, including a full set of control flow primitives.
Properties of C:
To understand C as a programming language, here are a few properties of C:
- Procedural
- Bottom-up approach.
- System programming language.
- Does not support classes and objects.
- Supports pointers
C++ (Programming language):
C++ is a general-purpose programming language that is more of an extension of C (Programming language). The language was created during the years 1983-1985. It was developed by Bjarne Stroustrup. It was created by Stroustrup when he realized that the other programming language was useful for software development but was too slow for practical use. The other languages were either low-level or unsuitable for practical use. Some of the improved features of C++ that were developed by Stroustrup include virtual functions, function names and operator overloading, references, constants, type-safe free-store memory allocation (new/delete) as well as an improved type checking, and BCPL style single-line comments with two forward slashes.
In 1985, C++ became one of the popular definitive programming languages. However, the implementation of the same began later in the same year.
Features of C++:
- Object-oriented
- Bottom-up approach
- Speed is faster.
- Rich library support in the form of the standard template library.
- Supports Pointers and references.
One of the notable differences between the C and C++ languages is that C++ language is generally compatible with other generic programming languages, unlike C language. Comparatively, the C++ language makes coding easier.
In simple words, the C++ language is an extension of the C language and has several improved properties. Apart from the regular procedural features that come with C, C++ also supports object-oriented programming features like inheritance, polymorphism, abstraction, encapsulation, GUI programming, and others.