C is sometimes referred to as a “high-level assembly language”.  It is a very powerful programming language that allows complete access to all aspects of the computer.  It is used for developing complex applications that require a high degree of control. All of the Microsoft Operating Systems and the Microsoft Office suite are writtten in C / C++.

C++ is a direct descendant of C that retains almost all of C as a subset. C++ provides stronger type checking than C and directly supports a wider range of programming styles than C. In addition, C++ supports data abstraction, object-oriented programming, and generic programming.

Both languages allow the programmer to access memory and Operating System objects at a very low level, which generally results in faster code execution, than higher level languages such as Visual Basic.

However, both C and C++ are not as intuitive as higher-level languages and require a high degree of skill to use properly. C/C++ makes it easy for the novice programmer to “shoot themselves in the foot”.  Because code written in C/C++ are far more verbose than using the mainstream programming languages, development times are significantly slower.

C/C++ is also more difficult to master, and because of this there are far fewer proficient C/C++ programmers in the industry.