Programming Embedded Systems, 2nd Edition

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.

Embedded C++

You might be wondering why the creators of the C++ language included so many features that are expensive in terms of execution time and code size. You are not alone; people around the world have wondered the same thing—especially the users of C++ for embedded programming. Many of these expensive features are recent additions that are neither strictly necessary nor part of the original C++ specification. These features have been added one by one as part of the ongoing “standardization” process.

In 1996, a group of Japanese processor vendors joined together to define a subset of the C++ language and libraries that is better suited for embedded software ...