I am currently reading Stroustrup’s book "Design and Evolution of C++" and it turns out that he was not the one who developed C++.
When I hear someone saying "Bjarne Stroustrup developed C++ blah-blah-blah", I always feel it is very unfair to these guys who worked with BS – I mean Jonathan Shopiro, Andrew Koenig, Stan Lippman, Stefan Dewhurst and others. Why is it that way? Even wikipedia does not mention his team – only him What it that about?
EDIT:
When people say C#, they did not mean Anders Hejlsberg ONLY, there were a development team working on both exactly C# and .NET Framework. May be it`s because C++ does not belong to any software-giant company, as Java to Oracle or C# to Microsoft?
I am currently reading Stroustrup’s book "Design and Evolution of C++" and it turns
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C++ has gone through two major stages of its evolution.
The early days were Bjarne Stroustrup making a language. He obviously borrowed ideas from others, and solicited feedback from several clever language designers, and no doubt had a small team working under him, but the language was fundamentally his baby.
In those days, I don’t really have a problem with saying that Stroustrup designed the language. Obviously he didn’t do it in a vacuum, he got a good deal of help from others, but that’s just it. They helped him design his language. They didn’t take ownership of it.
The second phase is where it’s at now: An ISO standard. These are maintained by committees, and in the C++ committee, Stroustrup is just one out of many participating members. His words might still carry a bit more weight because of his history with the language, but fundamentally, he no longer has any kind of special status. He’s just a contributor, like all the others in the committee.
The moment the language was standardized, it ceased to be “his” language. After that, he, and many others just helped the ISO maintain and evolve the language.
At least that’s how I see it.