A Brief Introduction to C++

This book aims to provide you with a solid foundation to write efficient applications, as well as an insight into strategies for implementing libraries in modern C++. I have tried to take a practical approach to explain how C++ works today, where modern features from C++11 up to C++20 are a natural part of the language, rather than looking at C++ historically.

In this chapter, we will:

• Cover some of the features of C++ that are important for writing robust, high-performance applications
• Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of C++ over competing languages
• Go over the libraries and compilers used in this book

Why C++?

Let's begin by exploring some of the reasons for using C++ today. In short, C++ is a highly portable language that offers zero-cost abstractions. Furthermore, C++ provides programmers with the ability to write and manage large, expressive, and robust code bases. In this section, we'll look at what we mean by zero-cost abstractions, compare C++ abstraction with abstraction in other languages, and discuss portability and robustness, and why such features are important.

Let's begin by getting into zero-cost abstractions.

Zero-cost abstractions

Active code bases grow. The more developers working on a code base, the larger the code base becomes. In order to manage the growing complexity of a code base, we need language features such as variables, functions, and classes to be able to create our own abstractions with custom names and interfaces that suppress details of the implementation.

C++ allows us to define our own abstractions but it also...

C++ compared with other languages

A multitude of application types, platforms, and programming languages have emerged since C++ was first released. Still, C++ remains a widely used language, and its compilers are available for most platforms. The major exception, as of today, is the web platform, where JavaScript and its related technologies are the foundation. However, the web platform is evolving into being able to execute what was previously only possible in desktop applications, and in that context, C++ has found its way into web applications using technologies such as Emscripten, asm.js, and WebAssembly.

In this section, we'll begin by looking at competing languages in the context of performance. Following this, we'll look at how C++ handles object ownership and garbage collection in comparison to other languages, and how we can avoid null objects in C++. Finally, we'll cover some drawbacks of C++ that users should keep in mind when considering whether...

Libraries and compilers used in this book

As mentioned earlier, C++ does not provide more than the bare necessities in terms of libraries. In this book, we will, therefore, have to rely on external libraries where necessary. The most commonly used library in the world of C++ is probably the Boost library (http://www.boost.org).

Some parts of this book use the Boost library where the standard C++ library is not enough. We will only use the header-only parts of the Boost library, which means that using them yourself does not require any specific build setup; rather, you just have to include the specified header file.

In addition, we will use Google Benchmark, a microbenchmark support library, to evaluate the performance of small code snippets. Google Benchmark will be introduced in Chapter 3, Analyzing and Measuring Performance.

The repository available at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Cpp-High-Performance-Second-Edition with the accompanying source code of the...

Summary

In this chapter, I have highlighted some features and drawbacks of C++ and how it has evolved to the state it is in today. Further, we discussed the advantages and disadvantages of C++ compared with other languages, both from the perspective of performance and robustness.

In the next chapter, we will explore some modern and essential C++ features that have had a major impact on how the language has developed.