Return to CPP Bell Laboratories, Dennis Ritchie, Bjarne Stroustrup, Unix, Plan 9 Operating System, C Programming Language, C++, History of the Computer, History of Programming Languages, Xerox PARC

In 1972, Dennis Ritchie developed the compiled programming language C as a replacement for the interpreted language B which was then used in a worse is better rewrite of UNIX. Also, the language AWK was designed and implemented by Alfred Aho, Peter Weinberger, and Brian Kernighan of Bell Laboratories. Also in 1972, Marc Rochkind invented the Source Code Control System (see Version control - Source control).

In 1985, the programming language C++ had its first commercial release. Bjarne Stroustrup started developing C Plus Plus C++ at Bell Laboratories in 1979 as a language extension to the original C language.

“The evolution of CPP was always in the context of its use. I spent a lot of time listening to CPP users, seeking out the opinions of experienced CPP programmers, and of course writing CPP code. In particular, my colleagues at CPP AT&T Bell Laboratories were essential for the growth of CPP during its first decade.” (TrCppBS 2022)