C++ versus C++11

Who can characterize C++11 better than Bjarne Stroustrup, creator of C++:

Surprisingly, C++11 feels like a new language: The pieces just fit together better than they used to and I find a higher-level style of programming more natural than before and as efficient as ever.
– Bjarne Stroustrup

Bjarne Stroustrup is right. C++11 feels like a new language because it has a lot to offer in addition to classic C++. This is true for the core language and is even more true for the improved and extended standard library. The regular expression library for the manipulation of text, the type-traits library to get, compare or manipulate types, the new random numbers library or the chrono library are all new with C++11. But that’s not all. There are smart pointers for automatic memory management and the new containers std::array and std::tuple, which are further improved in C++14. C++11 is for the first time aware of multiple threads and offers a multithreading library.

Before we learn the C++ Standard Library, let’s talk about the history of C++.