C++: Panacea or Placebo

The art of computer programming has flourished over the last forty years. The industry has progressed from machine language through object oriented automatic code generation (ACG). With the arrival of higher level languages, and the popularity of object oriented design, languages such as C++ have become the standard for development efforts. C++ has become the language of choice for many programming shops, due to the upward migration path from the C language, and the constraints of reengineering. Before migrating to C++, a programming shop must consider the needs of the environment. Real-time control and high speed communications require a larger degree of flexibility and efficiency that might not be available with C++. The widespread usage of high speed RISC processors, optimizing compilers, and object oriented methodologies has made it easier to justify the usage of the language. It might, however, not always be the appropriate choice in all cases