C++ facts

[Bjarne Stroustrup]

Enough is enough!

Here, for a change, are some facts about C++:

It has been released to holders of EDUCATIONAL UNIX licenses ONLY.
For information, documentation, or tapes phone 1-800-828-UNIX,
or write to
	AT&T Software Sales and Marketing
	PO Box 25000
	Greensboro, NC27420

There is currently no commercial release, but (contrary to rumors found
on netnews) neither has there ever been a decision never to release it.
If you want to express interest in such a way that the proper part AT&T
will notice send mail to ihnp4!btlunix!c++, but do not expect an answer.

Another source of information is the October special issue of the BLTJ. 
Yet another alternative is to send mail to research!pat and ask for the
C++ Computer Science Technical Reports.

C with Classes, as described some years ago, is a direct ancestor to C++,
but C++ has come a long way since then. C++ is, with minor exceptions,
a superset of C, and designed to fit into a C programming environment, and
to achieve (at least) the same degree of efficiency (however measured) as C.

C++ is a statically type-checked language with its class concept fully integrated
with other language features. It also has many features unrelated to classes.
It was inspired primarily by Simula67, not Smalltalk, and its aims differ
significantly from Smalltalk's. There are, inevitably, many similarities,
since Smalltalk too derived much inspiration from Simula67. Smalltalk, however,
is dynamically type-checked and somewhat interpretive in nature, and it is also
in a very strong sense its own operating system and run time environment.

It may be worth mentioning that I think the ANSI committee is doing a good job
at what it is supposed to do: Standardizing C. I do not think they could have
borrowed more from C++ than they did without violating their charter.

	Bjarne Stroustrup
	Computer Science Research Center
	AT&T Bell Labs, Murray Hill, NJ.

	{ucbvax! or ihnp4! or decvax!} research!bs