What is the difference between C and C++?

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Hi Team,
I am a novice in programming and have a bit of knowledge in c++(learnt it when i was in 12th).
I want to know whats the difference in c and c++?
Isnt C++ better than C? If so, then why so many companies use C and not C++?
 

rajas

In the zone
HI imagineer_aman, welcome to the forum.

:shock: Do u need to post 3 threads on the same issue. Please do not repeat this.
 

damnthenet

Journeyman
Even I'm only learner when it comes to programming. The difference between C and C++ technically is that the former is a structure oriented language and the latter, a object oriented programming language. When it comes to usage in companies, it entirely depends on the purpose. What the company feels better enjoys the priority.
Daniel Moses
 

devilhead_satish

In the zone
Why i ask you Why? Why should you use C++ in the age of Microsoft.net Tech and loads of other futuristico programming apps. If you cite speed as the reason. i'll tell you that it wont be long before everyone has a GigaHertz Guzzler. Apps in C++ take horrendously long to make. Even a simple form will take you a day to build which is readily available in .Net .
 
@satish
Calm Down Man... He Might've Some Related Subjects In His Academic Syllabus... BTW, I Prefer People Learning C, C++, To Understand, Why At All C Was Invented When We Had Assembly Language, N What Led To Invention Of C++... Just Have A Look Where C & C++ Stand... Language Ratings

@aman
C was the C++ predecessor. As it's name implies, alot of C remains in C++. Although not actually being more powerful than C, C++ allows the programmer to more easily manage and operate with Objects, using an OOP (Object Oriented Programming) concept.

C++ allows the programmer to create classes, which are somewhat similar to C structures. However, to a class can be assigned methods, functions associated to it, of various prototypes, which can access and operate within the class, somewhat like C functions often operate on a supplied handler pointer.

Although it is possible to implement anything which C++ could implement in C, C++ aids to standarize a way in which objects are created and managed, whereas the C programmer who implements the same system has alot of liberty on how to actually implement the internals, and style among programmers will vary alot on the design choices made.

In C, some will prefer the handler-type, where a main function initializes a handler, and that handler can be supplied to other functions of the library as an object to operate on/through. Others will even want to have that handler link all the related function pointers within it which then must be called using a convention closer to C++.

To finish this discussion, C++ applications are generally slower at runtime, and are much slower to compile than C programs. The low-level infrastructure for C++ binary execution is also larger. For these reasons C is always commonly used even if C++ has alot of popularity, and will probably continue to be used in projects where size and speed are primary concerns, and portable code still required (assembly would be unsuitable then).
-Matthew Mondor

Hope This Helps....
 
OP
I

imagineer_aman

Broken In
Thanks a ton guys. A friend of mine sent me this text attachment.After reading this please tell me your views...

This is a copy of what Bjarne Stroustrup told in an interview
with an IEEE magazine reporter.

IEEE Bjarne Stroustrup C++ Interview


On the 1st of January, 1998, Bjarne Stroustrup gave an
interview to
the IEEE's 'Computer' magazine. Naturally, the editors
thought he
would be giving a retrospective view of seven years of
object-oriented
design, using the language he created (C++).

By the end of the interview, the interviewer got more
than he had
bargained for and, subsequently, the editor decided to
suppress its
contents, 'for the good of the industry' but, as with
many of these
things, there was a leak.

Here is a complete transcript of what was was said,
unedited, and
unrehearsed, so it isn't as neat as planned
interviews. You will find
it interesting...


------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------
Interviewer: Well, it's been a few years since you
changed the world
of software design, how does it feel, looking back?
Stroustrup: Actually, I was thinking about those days,
just before you
arrived. Do you remember? Everyone was writing 'C'
and, the trouble
was, they were pretty damn good at it. Universities
got pretty good at
teaching it, too. They were turning out competent - I
stress the word
'competent' - graduates at a phenomenal rate. That's
what caused the
problem.
Interviewer: Problem?
Stroustrup: Yes, problem. Remember when everyone wrote
Cobol?
Interviewer: Of course, I did too
Stroustrup: Well, in the beginning, these guys were
like demi-gods.
Their salaries were high, and they were treated like
royalty.
Interviewer: Those were the days, eh?
Stroustrup: Right. So what happened? IBM got sick of
it, and invested
millions in training programmers, till they were a
dime a dozen.
Interviewer: That's why I got out. Salaries dropped
within a year, to
the point where being a journalist actually paid
better.
Stroustrup: Exactly. Well, the same happened with 'C'
programmers.
Interviewer: I see, but what's the point?
Stroustrup: Well, one day, when I was sitting in my
office, I thought
of this little scheme, which would redress the balance
a little. I
thought 'I wonder what would happen, if there were a
language so
complicated, so difficult to learn, that nobody would
ever be able to
swamp the market with programmers? Actually, I got
some of the ideas
from X10, you know, X windows. That was such a bitch
of a graphics
system, that it only just ran on those Sun 3/60
things. They had all
the ingredients for what I wanted. A really
ridiculously complex
syntax, obscure functions, and pseudo-OO structure.
Even now, nobody
writes raw X-windows code. Motif is the only way to go
if you want to
retain your sanity.
Interviewer: You're kidding...?
Stroustrup: Not a bit of it. In fact, there was
another problem. Unix
was written in 'C', which meant that any 'C'
programmer could very
easily become a systems programmer. Remember what a
mainframe systems
programmer used to earn?
Interviewer: You bet I do, that's what I used to do.
Stroustrup: OK, so this new language had to divorce
itself from Unix,
by hiding all the system calls that bound the two
together so nicely.
This would enable guys who only knew about DOS to earn
a decent living
too.
Interviewer: I don't believe you said that...
Stroustrup: Well, it's been long enough, now, and I
believe most
people have figured out for themselves that C++ is a
waste of time
but, I must say, it's taken them a lot longer than I
thought it would.
Interviewer: So how exactly did you do it?
Stroustrup: It was only supposed to be a joke, I never
thought people
would take the book seriously. Anyone with half a
brain can see that
object-oriented programming is counter-intuitive,
illogical and
inefficient.
Interviewer: What?
Stroustrup: And as for 're-useable code' - when did
you ever hear of a
company re-using its code?
Interviewer: Well, never, actually, but...
Stroustrup: There you are then. Mind you, a few tried,
in the early
days. There was this Oregon company - Mentor Graphics,
I think they
were called - really caught a cold trying to rewrite
everything in C++
in about '90 or '91. I felt sorry for them really, but
I thought
people would learn from their mistakes.
Interviewer: Obviously, they didn't?
Stroustrup: Not in the slightest. Trouble is, most
companies hush-up
all their major blunders, and explaining a $30 million
loss to the
shareholders would have been difficult. Give them
their due, though,
they made it work in the end.
Interviewer: They did? Well, there you are then, it
proves O-O works.
Stroustrup: Well, almost. The executable was so huge,
it took five
minutes to load, on an HP workstation, with 128MB of
RAM. Then it ran
like treacle. Actually, I thought this would be a
major
stumbling-block, and I'd get found out within a week,
but nobody
cared. Sun and HP were only too glad to sell
enormously powerful
boxes, with huge resources just to run trivial
programs. You know,
when we had our first C++ compiler, at AT&T, I
compiled 'Hello World',
and couldn't believe the size of the executable. 2.1MB
Interviewer: What? Well, compilers have come a long
way, since then.
Stroustrup: They have? Try it on the latest version of
g++ - you won't
get much change out of half a megabyte. Also, there
are several quite
recent examples for you, from all over the world.
British Telecom had
a major disaster on their hands but, luckily, managed
to scrap the
whole thing and start again. They were luckier than
Australian
Telecom. Now I hear that Siemens is building a
dinosaur, and getting
more and more worried as the size of the hardware gets
bigger, to
accommodate the executables. Isn't multiple
inheritance a joy?
Interviewer: Yes, but C++ is basically a sound
language.
Stroustrup: You really believe that, don't you? Have
you ever sat down
and worked on a C++ project? Here's what happens:
First, I've put in
enough pitfalls to make sure that only the most
trivial projects will
work first time. Take operator overloading. At the end
of the project,
almost every module has it, usually, because guys feel
they really
should do it, as it was in their training course. The
same operator
then means something totally different in every
module. Try pulling
that lot together, when you have a hundred or so
modules. And as for
data hiding. God, I sometimes can't help laughing when
I hear about
the problems companies have making their modules talk
to each other. I
think the word 'synergistic' was specially invented to
twist the knife
in a project manager's ribs.
Interviewer: I have to say, I'm beginning to be quite
appalled at all
this. You say you did it to raise programmers'
salaries? That's
obscene.
Stroustrup: Not really. Everyone has a choice. I
didn't expect the
thing to get so much out of hand. Anyway, I basically
succeeded. C++
is dying off now, but programmers still get high
salaries - especially
those poor devils who have to maintain all this crap.
You do realise,
it's impossible to maintain a large C++ software
module if you didn't
actually write it?
Interviewer: How come?
Stroustrup: You are out of touch, aren't you? Remember
the typedef?
Interviewer: Yes, of course.
Stroustrup: Remember how long it took to grope through
the header
files only to find that 'RoofRaised' was a double
precision number?
Well, imagine how long it takes to find all the
implicit typedefs in
all the Classes in a major project.
Interviewer: So how do you reckon you've succeeded?
Stroustrup: Remember the length of the average-sized
'C' project?
About 6 months. Not nearly long enough for a guy with
a wife and kids
to earn enough to have a decent standard of living.
Take the same
project, design it in C++ and what do you get? I'll
tell you. One to
two years. Isn't that great? All that job security,
just through one
mistake of judgement. And another thing. The
universities haven't been
teaching 'C' for such a long time, there's now a
shortage of decent
'C' programmers. Especially those who know anything
about Unix systems
programming. How many guys would know what to do with
'malloc', when
they've used 'new' all these years - and never
bothered to check the
return code. In fact, most C++ programmers throw away
their return
codes. Whatever happened to good ol' '-1'? At least
you knew you had
an error, without bogging the thing down in all that
'throw' 'catch'
'try' stuff.
Interviewer: But, surely, inheritance does save a lot
of time?
Stroustrup: Does it? Have you ever noticed the
difference between a
'C' project plan, and a C++ project plan? The planning
stage for a C++
project is three times as long. Precisely to make sure
that everything
which should be inherited is, and what shouldn't
isn't. Then, they
still get it wrong. Whoever heard of memory leaks in a
'C' program?
Now finding them is a major industry. Most companies
give up, and send
the product out, knowing it leaks like a sieve, simply
to avoid the
expense of tracking them all down.
Interviewer: There are tools...
Stroustrup: Most of which were written in C++.
Interviewer: If we publish this, you'll probably get
lynched, you do
realise that?
Stroustrup: I doubt it. As I said, C++ is way past its
peak now, and
no company in its right mind would start a C++ project
without a pilot
trial. That should convince them that it's the road to
disaster. If
not, they deserve all they get. You know, I tried to
convince Dennis
Ritchie to rewrite Unix in C++.
Interviewer: Oh my God. What did he say?
Stroustrup: Well, luckily, he has a good sense of
humor. I think both
he and Brian figured out what I was doing, in the
early days, but
never let on. He said he'd help me write a C++ version
of DOS, if I
was interested.
Interviewer: Were you?
Stroustrup: Actually, I did write DOS in C++, I'll
give you a demo
when we're through. I have it running on a Sparc 20 in
the computer
room. Goes like a rocket on 4 CPU's, and only takes up
70 megs of
disk.
Interviewer: What's it like on a PC?
Stroustrup: Now you're kidding. Haven't you ever seen
Windows '95? I
think of that as my biggest success. Nearly blew the
game before I was
ready, though.
Interviewer: You know, that idea of a Unix++ has
really got me
thinking. Somewhere out there, there's a guy going to
try it.
Stroustrup: Not after they read this interview.
Interviewer: I'm sorry, but I don't see us being able
to publish any of this.
Stroustrup: But it's the story of the century. I only
want to be
remembered by my fellow programmers, for what I've
done for them. You
know how much a C++ guy can get these days?
Interviewer: Last I heard, a really top guy is worth
$70 - $80 an hour.
Stroustrup: See? And I bet he earns it. Keeping track
of all the
gotchas I put into C++ is no easy job. And, as I said
before, every
C++ programmer feels bound by some mystic promise to
use every damn
element of the language on every project. Actually,
that really annoys
me sometimes, even though it serves my original
purpose. I almost like
the language after all this time.
Interviewer: You mean you didn't before?
Stroustrup: Hated it. It even looks clumsy, don't you
agree? But when
the book royalties started to come in... well, you get
the picture.
Interviewer: Just a minute. What about references? You
must admit, you
improved on 'C' pointers.
Stroustrup: Hmm. I've always wondered about that.
Originally, I
thought I had. Then, one day I was discussing this
with a guy who'd
written C++ from the beginning. He said he could never
remember
whether his variables were referenced or dereferenced,
so he always
used pointers. He said the little asterisk always
reminded him.
Interviewer: Well, at this point, I usually say 'thank
you very much'
but it hardly seems adequate.
Stroustrup: Promise me you'll publish this. My
conscience is getting
the better of me these days.
Interviewer: I'll let you know, but I think I know
what my editor will say.
Stroustrup: Who'd believe it anyway? Although, can you
send me a copy
of that tape?
Interviewer: I can do that.
 

Calcatian

Journeyman
C vs C++

:D If there is one thing you guys are good at - its making a thing as much complicated as possible :!: Don't worry imagineer_aman, here is a simpler explanation :arrow:

You see "C" has got no class, so if you wanna be a digital majdoor and spend your life away with humongous code-crunching, then "c" is gonna be your tool :wink: And belive me, you will get a good job, people all over the world will use firmwares and other good stuff that you wrote but no one will know your name :!:

Now, C++ on the other hand is all classy (not classic - that's C), so if you are like me you will learn C++ lingo (like I did when I was your age) and quickly upgrade yourself to its latest offspring VC++.net (which is a gr8 thing contrary to what some bozos may say as apps developed with it runs noticably faster than any other RAD tool) and earn your shot to fame :!:
For example, if I disclose my real identity in here, no matter who they are or where they're from - 99.99% of the members will instantly recognize me :!: So there you have it.

:wink: (Now, I wonder why I tend to use lots of parentheses whenever i'm typing anything) :!:
 

escape7

What? Where? How?
Re: C vs C++

Calcatian said:
For example, if I disclose my real identity in here, no matter who they are or where they're from - 99.99% of the members will instantly recognize me :!: So there you have it.

OK then, how ab't telling us who the hell r u?
 
OP
I

imagineer_aman

Broken In
First of all THanks guys,for letting me know that it was a gud article. i too thght so.
Abt the main theme - c or c++?why companies use c even when theres a better version or superset c++?
Heres what i can make of all the inputs i got from u.

1)a novice shud learn both c and c++.
2)Based on what the appln is wither of the two must be preferred. For eg:for device manager files,c must be used. For other stuff like small games(i aint sure exactly what stuff), c++ must be used.
3)companies prefer c or c++ based on point2 and the efficiency of the language.

If i m wrong pls correct me.

Also Dear Calcatian, we wud all like to know the famous celebrity whom we talked to(and what do u have to say abt Bjarne's interview?)!!!
 

Calcatian

Journeyman
Re: C vs C++

escape7 said:
Calcatian said:
For example, if I disclose my real identity in here, no matter who they are or where they're from - 99.99% of the members will instantly recognize me :!: So there you have it.

OK then, how ab't telling us who the hell r u?

You want the truth :?: You can't handle the truth :!:

*scosoft.com/s/i/25791d03.gif
 

Alexander_H

Broken In
Buddy check this link.......

*www.4p8.com/eric.brasseur/cppcen.html#l2

complete difference btw C and C++ with examples r explain here....
hope u will like it.....


Bye
 

~Phenom~

The No.1 Stupid
CALCATIAN wrote :
if I disclose my real identity in here, no matter who they are or where they're from - 99.99% of the members will instantly recognize me Exclamation So there you have it.








we all are good exception handlers here


just tell us who r u???

a garbage value or a dangling reference???
 

mukul

Journeyman
imageneer_aman

i can tell u a simpler way to go into all details
if u r a digit subscriber

look out for april 2005 dvd
u 'll find thinking in c++ by Mr. Bruce Arkel
read it's first chapter and ur doubts will be gone
 
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