Let C++ Simplify Your Life

Abstract

The programming language C++, under development since 1979 by Bjarne Stroustrup^l at Bell Laboratories, is an extension of C that promises to dominate the field of software development. C++ supports the principles of object-oriented programming, which is based on the tenet that programs, or, better, processes, comprise a set of objects that interact exclusively through their interfaces. That is, they exchange information or accept certain external commands and process them as a task. In this the methods by which an object carries out a task are an internal affair “decided upon” autonomously by the object alone. The data structures and functions that represent the internal state of an object and effect transitions between states are the private affair of the object and should not be detectable from the outside. This principle, known as information hiding, assists software developers in concentrating on the tasks that an object has to fulfill within the framework of a program without having to worry about implementation details. (Another way of saying this is that the focus is on “what,” not on “how.”)

Our life is frittered away by detail... . Simplify, simplify. —H. D. Thoreau, Walden