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Title: History and Spirit of C and C++
Proposer: Olve Maudal
Type: Tutorial
Duration: 90 mins
Description:
To get a deep understandig of C and C++, it is useful to know the
history of these lovely languages. However, it is not only useful, it
is essential, to appreciate the driving forces, motivation and the
spirit that has shaped these languages into what we have today.
In the first half we go back to machine code, assembler, Fortran,
Algol and CPL, before we discuss the motivations behind BCPL, B and
then early C. We will also discuss influential hardware architectures
like the Atlas, PDP-7, PDP-11, IBM-370, Honeywell 6000 and Interdata
8/32. From there we quickly move through the newer language versions
such as K&R C, C89, C99 and C11.
In the second half we backtrack into the history again, now including
Simula, Algol 68, Ada, ML, Clu into the equation. We will discuss the
motivation for creating C++, and discuss of it has evolved from a
rather primit 'C with Classes' into a super modern and capable
programming language as we now have with C++11/14 and soon with C++17.