Bjarne Stroustrup
The creator of C++，academician of National Academy of Engineering, ACM and IEEE
Bjarne Stroustrup the creator of C++, is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, ACM Fellow, and IEEE Fellow, and is recognized as “one of the 20 most influential people in the computer industry over the past 20 years.” He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Cambridge in 1979 and subsequently joined Bell Labs, where he invented C++. His research interests include distributed systems, programming languages, and software development tools. In 2018, he received the Charles Stark Draper Prize from the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, often regarded as the “Nobel Prize of Engineering.” He has served as a professor at Texas A&M University and as Managing Director in the Technology Division at Morgan Stanley, and currently served as a full professor at Columbia University. His major works include *The C++ Programming Language* and *The Design and Evolution of C++*.
Topic
C++: Four Decades of Enduring Success
How has it achieved massive adoption despite minimal marketing, no corporate backing, and even being repeatedly predicted to “fade away” before it was formally named C++? The answer lies in several core language properties that match broad real-world needs, remain accessible to everyday developers, and have stayed stable and reliable over decades. This talk explores a series of key technical decisions that shaped C++, including classes with constructors and destructors, templates with constrained concepts, and modules—and explains their roles in modern C++. It will also briefly outline the proposed Profiles initiative, which aims to manage the complexity accumulated over decades of deep and diverse C++ usage.
