C++: From Research to Practice

1. Introduction: Research into language design has continued apace essentially since the invention of high level languages in the fifties. Each year sees yet another new language vie for inclusion into the much more restricted set of languages used for serious development. Few succeed. At one level, of course, C++ is being used in practice because it is a very pleasant language in which to program. 

But, other new languages exist that are pleasant to program in and other languages have a facilities that mesh cleanly and support programming at higher levels of abstraction. Yet we are here at a C++ conference and few other languages have generated interest sufficient to justify such a gathering. Why C++?