C++

C++, an extension of C, was developed by Bjarne Stroustrup in the early 1980s at Bell Laboratories. The most important feature of C++, and difference from C, is that C++ provides capabilities for object-oriented programming. C++ was recently standardized by the ANSI and ISO committees. Java is a descendant of C++. Although a lot of syntax has been borrowed from C++, Java made no attempt to be compatible with C++. Java is designed to run over the Internet, and that required it take advantage of new language technology--for example, advances in automatic garbage collection, and just-in-time compilation. There are some similarities of Java and C++, like C-style statements, expressions, and declarations--and classes, access privileges, virtual functions and overloading. Java, however, omits various features of C and C++ that are considered ``difficult''--notably, pointers. Poor compiler analysis has often been blamed on these features. Java has fewer rules to remember. This is sometimes because it doesn't support the operations (operator overloading, for example), and sometimes because it does the work for you (automatic garbage collection, for example). In recent years numerous variations on the theme of C++ for parallel computing have appeared. See, for example [8,17,23,28,31,55].