The C++ Programming Language, 4th Edition

Preface to the First Edition

Language shapes the way we think, and determines what we can think about.

– B.L.Whorf

C++ is a general purpose programming language designed to make programming more enjoyable for the serious programmer. Except for minor details, C++ is a superset of the C programming language. In addition to the facilities provided by C, C++ provides flexible and efficient facilities for defining new types. A programmer can partition an application into manageable pieces by defining new types that closely match the concepts of the application. This technique for program construction is often called data abstraction. Objects of some user-defined types contain type information. Such objects can be used conveniently and safely in contexts ...