- C++ programming language is one of the oldest and most efficient language that still continues to dominate the realm of programming.
- For every beginner wants to know about the advantages and disadvantages of C++on the basis of which they can start their programming journey.
- Limitations and Benefits are the most important to know to predict their next step.
Advantages of C++
Portability
- Portability or platform independence which allows the user to run the same program on different interfaces or operating system.
- For programmer this feature proves to be of great convenience.
- Suppose in Linux OS we write a program and for some reason switch to Windows OS, we would be able to run the same program in windows as well without any error.
Object-Oriented
- In C++ the feature of object-oriented programming which includes concepts like classes, polymorphism, inheritance, encapsulation and data abstraction that makes a program even more reliable and allow code reusability.
Multi-Paradigm
- It is a multi-paradigm programming language.
- The term paradigm refers to the style of programming and includes procedure, logic and structure.
- Generic, object-oriented and imperative are the three paradigms of C++.
Memory Management
- C++ programmer gives the provision of total control over memory management.
- An asset and a liability are the both increases the responsibility of the user to manage memory rather than it being managed by Garbage Collector.
Compatibility with C
- Compare with C program, C++ is pretty much compatibility
- Every error-free C program is a valid of C++ program, virtually.
- Every program of C++ can run on a file with .cpp extension, depending on the compiler used.
Low-Level Manipulation
- At certain level C++ allows low-level manipulation of data, which is a procedural language closely related to the machine language, C++ is closely associated with C.
- Compiler and embedded systems are created with the help of C++.
Large Community Support
- C++ has a large community that supports it by providing online courses and both paid, unpaid and lectures.
- Statistically speaking, in Stack Overflow and Git Hub C++ is the most used and followed tag.
Scalability
- Scalability refers to the ability of a program to scale, that means the C++ program is capable of running on a small scale as well as a large scale of data.
Disadvantages of C++
Use of pointers
- Pointers in C++ consumes a lot of memory and relatively difficult concept to grasp.
- Misuse of pointers like wild pointers may cause the system to behave or crash anomalously.
Absence of garbage collector
- Using Dynamic Memory Allocation (DMA) C++ gives the user complete control of managing the computer memory.
- It lacks the feature of a garbage collector to automatically filter out unnecessary data.
Security Issues
- As compared to other programming languages object-oriented programming offers a lot of security to the data being handled that are not object-oriented, like C, certain security issues still exist due to the availability of pointers, friend functions and global variables.
Absence of built-in thread
- Threads is a relatively new concept in C++ which wasn’t initially there and it does not support any built-in threads.