Creator of C++: Bell Labs, Negative Overhead Abstraction, Mistakes | Bjarne Stroustrup

Bjarne Stroustrup is the creator of the C++ programming language and a former researcher at Bell Labs. We talked about what Bell Labs was like, programming language design, and interesting anecdotes from his experience.

• My ergonomic keyboard project I mentioned, you can follow along here: read.compose.llc

𝗣𝗼𝗱𝗰𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗸𝘀:

• YouTube: youtu.be/U46fJ2bJ-co
• Apple: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-peterman-pod…
• Transcript: developing.dev/p/creator-of-c-bell-labs-negati…

𝗧𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗸 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗲𝗽𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗱𝗲'𝘀 𝘀𝗽𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗼𝗿𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘀𝘂𝗽𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗺𝘆 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸:

• Cursor 3: a unified workspace for building software with agents, check it out at cursor.com
• WorkOS: makes your app Enterprise Ready with easy to use APIs to add SSO, SCIM, RBAC, and more in just a few lines of code, check them out at workos.com

𝗧𝗶𝗺𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗺𝗽𝘀:

0:00 - Intro
0:50 - The origin of C++
8:46 - What Bell Labs was like
17:24 - Dennis Ritchie
24:00 - When to build a programming language
31:59 - Bootstrapping a language
33:58 - C++ is not object-oriented
37:32 - Discussing type systems
46:20 - Memory safety
49:26 - Standards committee anecdotes
1:09:40 - Adding automatic garbage collection to C++
1:18:25 - Template instantiation is Turing complete
1:21:57 - Abstraction and performance
1:28:51 - AI writing code
1:35:54 - His motivation
1:39:18 - Famous quotes
1:46:48 - Reflecting on building C++
1:49:12 - Top C++ book recommendation
1:50:59 - Advice for his younger self
1:58:06 - Outro

𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝗕𝗷𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗲:

• Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bjarne_Stroustrup
• Personal Website: stroustrup.com

𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝗥𝘆𝗮𝗻:

• Newsletter: developing.dev
• X/Twitter: x.com/ryanlpeterman
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/ryanlpeterman
• Threads: threads.com/@ryanlpeterman
• Instagram: instagram.com/ryanlpeterman
• TikTok: tiktok.com/@ryanlpeterman

𝗥𝗲𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗲𝗽𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗱𝗲:

• "A History of C++": stroustrup.com/hopl2.pdf
• "Evolving a language in and for the real world": stroustrup.com/hopl-almost-final.pdf
• "Thriving in a Crowded and Changing World": open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2020/p…
• The lecture where he mentioned he lost half his hair: youtu.be/69edOm889V4?si=IAZxYNwlUALodEV7&t…
• Quotes I pulled: stroustrup.com/quotes.html