Limiting the Impact of C++
One of the issues we faced upon deciding to write this book was whether or not to include C++ in the discussion and examples. For almost all of the projects we have worked on throughout our respective careers, the embedded software was written in C and assembly language. In addition, there has been much debate within the embedded software community about the appropriateness of C++. It is widely believed that C++ programs produce larger executables that run more slowly than programs written entirely in C. However, C++ has many benefits for programmers.
We believe that many readers will face the choice of using C++ in their embedded programming. This section covers some of the C++ features that are useful for embedded system software and warns you about some of the more expensive features in the language.