With the release of C++11 (formerly C++0x) the famous language created back in 1979 its here to stay. The main feature of C++ is scope-bound resource management, SBRM (more commonly known as "RAII").
It is the only industrial programming language that
is built around this concept. In C++, life times of all objects are
exactly known, and (well-written) C++ programs guarantee that resources
are acquired and released in fully deterministic manner. In comparison,
garbage-collected or otherwise managed languages do not provide any such
guarantees; in fact objects in those languages may persist after the
end of their lifetime.
That is the reason why C++ is used in finance, video games,
high-performance embedded and real-time systems, transportation,
manufacture, and other industries where determinism and precision are
important. There are no alternatives.
Granted, it was used for a lot more tasks than this, and those tasks
are being lost to C# and Python and other more suitable languages, but
that is not affecting its core niche. It is still here to stay for another decade. Use the suitable tools for the right job, but have C++ as part of your toolbox.
Sunday, 5 May 2013
