What is the Difference Between C and C++

C and C++, these both are the languages that every programmer has learned or used in some phase of his technical life.

So, let’s get started by knowing what these two languages are and what’s the difference between them is.

C :

Let’s first talk about the first one that came into existence, and that is C. C is the mother of all the language that we use in our day to day life, generally.

Development:

C is the procedural programming language and was developed between 1969-1973 (no exact date we know as of now) by Dennis Ritchie at AT & T Bells. C is just like the foundation of many languages that we are using.

C++ :

Now, let’s move on the latter one and the child of the C, with some new self-inherited functionalities i.e. C++. C++ could be said as the modified version of C, as a son is said to be of his father.

So, talking of its’ functionality C++ is a hybrid language that means mixture of 2 languages and that are procedural and object-oriented programming language.

Development:

It was developed by Bjarne Stroustrup back in 1979. And to be more elaborative C++ is known as “C with the class”.

Where class is not the status symbol to be specific. Class in C++ is the user-defined data structure which contains various types of entities in it.

C vs C++:

Now the time comes when we start the comparison between the family members of programming languages.
So, let’s start then :

1. To be specific C is the subset of C++ and C++ is the super-set of C.

It means most of the codes of C, can be run in C++, but not all the codes of C++ can be executed in C.

2. C is the light weighted language, which means the programs aren’t that heavy to handle, whereas C++ much more heavily weighted as compared to C.

3. C is the procedural type of programming language, which means it follows the procedural way of writing the code, where as in C++ we also have a functionality of Object Oriented type of Language.

It basically signifies tells that C++ supports various functions like polymorphism, abstraction, etc.

4. In C, as we know it is a procedural type so functions being written in it and data stored in the code doesn’t have any link.

Where as in C++, we know there is a concept of Class, in class we can bind all type of data and functions, and use it as an entity.

5. There is no data hiding being present in C language, which means we can modify the program written in C from outside the program.

Whereas this drawback is removed in C++, here we have the property named as abstraction present. Which means data cannot be modified from outside the program.

6. Overloading, as the name signifies using any functionality by avoiding the redundancy in the code. Hence, it is one of important aspect of any programming language.

C doesn’t supports operator and function overloading, whereas C++ supports both of them.

7. Now, last but not the least applications of the languages. C is good for embedded devices and system level code, which means it is much of hardware programming language.

Whereas, C++ is used for server side applications, networking, gaming etc.

So, if you don’t want more overhead in any general program prefer C, but if you want various functionalities with more overhead go with C++.