C++ (in Portuguese pronounced as "cê mais mais," and in English as "see plus plus") is a general-purpose, multi-paradigm programming language. It is considered a mid-level language because it combines features of both high- and low-level languages. Since the 1990s, C++ has been one of the most popular commercial languages and is also widely used in academia due to its high performance and large user base.

Bjarne Stroustrup developed C++ (originally named "C with Classes") in 1983 at Bell Labs as an extension of the C language. Over time, new features were added, such as virtual functions, operator overloading, multiple inheritance, templates, and exception handling.

Following ISO standardization in 1998 and a subsequent revision in 2003, a new language specification version was released in September 2011, known informally as C++11 or C++0x.

Stroustrup initially developed C++ at Bell Labs in the 1980s with the goal of implementing a distributed version of the Unix kernel. Since Unix was written in C, it was necessary to maintain compatibility while adding new features.

Some challenges included simulating inter-process communication in a distributed or shared-memory system and writing drivers for such systems. Stroustrup noticed that the language Simula 67 had highly useful characteristics for software development but was too slow for practical use. Conversely, the BCPL language was fast but too low-level, making it challenging to use for application development.

Drawing from his doctoral experience, Stroustrup began incorporating elements from Simula 67 into C, especially object creation and manipulation capabilities. C was chosen as the base for this new language due to its general-purpose design, speed, and portability across various platforms. Other languages that inspired Stroustrup included ALGOL 68, Ada, CLU, and ML.