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The C++ language was developed at AT&T Bell Laboratories as a general-purpose programming language based on C. In addition to the features provided by C, C++ provides data abstraction and support for object-oriented design and programming through classes, multiple inheritance, virtual functions and templates. C++ also provides operator and function name overloading, reference types, memory management operators and inline functions. Features of C++ such as constant types and function argument checking and type conversions have become part of the ANSI C programming language.
As with C, application programs written in C++ can usually be transported to a variety of machines. It is important to remember, however, that C++ was standardized more recently than C, and as a result different C++ compilers still may differ in how closely they track the standard. Implementations may also differ in various anachronisms of the language allowed. Users are discouraged from using anachronisms unless they occur in existing code that is difficult to change.