C and C++ are high-level programming languages that are widely used for developing system software and application software. They were developed to handle a wide variety of applications and meant to be cross platform compatible, so you only have to recompile your code on the new operating system for it to work. Of course, if you use OS specific libraries, you may not be able to move between platforms as easily.
C is a procedural programming language that was developed by Dennis Ritchie at Bell Labs in 1972.
C++ is an object-oriented programming language, that is an extension of the C language, that was developed by Bjarne Stroustrup at Bell Labs in 1983 as an extension of the C programming language.
They are considered general purpose languages and can therefore be used in almost any situation. Since they are older, and were designed for older machines, they require the developer to do more of the work. This makes this faster than a lot of modern languages, however it requires more load on the developer, and can lead to bugs such as memory leaks.
Because of this, a lot of modern applications are being written in newer languages like Java, C#, and others. However, there is still a large amount of existing applications to be maintained using C and C++. Plus, if an application needs to be high performance, often C/C++, is considered for either all, or part of the application.
If it is used for part of it, then the modules which are more speed intensive will be written in C/C++ and either imported into the application as a module or linked library, such as a DLL under windows, or as an application which will be called by the host application.
Review of C/C++ was originally found on Access 2 Learn
