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Ask HN: was there actually a language called C+?

3 points by BWStearns ↗ HN
Google could not resolve this bar argument. Google has proved inconclusive since most mentions of C+ seem to be either typos or uninformed but my impression is that if it did exist it would have been pre Internet. After somewhat thorough searching iI've been unable to come to a conclusive result. Any input?

7 comments

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zellio
C++ is a play on the increment operator (++) in C. The language was originally called C With Classes, but this was dropped in favour of the less wordy C++ or C increment. To describe a language which was C but a step improved / increased.
anaccountname
"I picked C++ because it was short, had nice interpretations, and wasn't of the form "adjective C."' In C, ++ can, depending on context, be read as "next," "successor," or "increment," though it is always pronounced "plus plus." The name C++ and its runner up ++C are fertile sources for jokes and puns - almost all of which were known and appreciated before the name was chosen. The name C++ was suggested by Rick Mascitti. It was first used in December of 1983 when it was edited into the final copies of [Stroustrup,1984] and [Stroustrup,1984c]."

The Design and Evolution of C++; Ch. 3, p.64 - Bjarne Stroustrup

Based on that excerpt, I'd hazard to guess that there was never was a C+. If there where, it's extremely unlikely that its Stoustrup participated in its creation.

BWStearns
OP here: I was/am not joking in the question. Some dude was really claiming that he learned/did real work in C+. I'm a youngin' so I didn't want to be an ass if this was a pre-internet language which failed to be appropriately recorded.

anaccountname/Zellio: I've seen that story about the naming logic for C++ (primarily the incrementer operater bit) which is what triggered my initial suspicion of this C+(no more pluses) thing.

Judging by the responses thus far and the propensity of HN to punish the uninformed question I am feeling relatively secure in my original assertion to the other programmer who originated this argument that there is in fact no such language as C+ (excluding of course something some random guy made that was never used in any significant volume). That said if I am wrong please let me know, cheers.

dalke
Bill Kinnersley's Language List, with 2500+ languages, at http://people.ku.edu/~nkinners/LangList/Indexes/cindex.htm , does not contain a "C+" (specifically, see http://people.ku.edu/~nkinners/LangList/Indexes/cindex.htm ).

That list is not complete. There are plenty of niche languages not present. (The X*PLOR programming language, used in an old crystallography program, and the SVL programming language, used in the molecular structure program MOE, are not present.) But it means that C+ is at best obscure.