C++ Versions

C++98 was the first official standardization of C++ by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).

• Introduction of the Standard Library (STL): Included containers and algorithms in the STL, such as vector, map, set, list, etc., which allowed for greater efficiency and ease of use in data manipulation.
• Templates and Exceptions: Improved support for generic programming through templates, as well as exception handling (try, catch, throw).
• Input and Output with Streams: Introduction of the stream system (iostream) for data input and output instead of C’s stdio.h library.

• Standard Library Update: Improvements to STL containers and functions to optimize their performance and stability.
• Template Stability: The implementation of templates was improved, solving limitations found after their use in C++98.

• Auto and decltype: Allow automatic deduction of variable types, facilitating code writing and maintenance.
• Lambdas and Anonymous Functions: Introduction of lambda functions, which allow defining inline functions, useful for functional programming and reducing repetitive code.
• Move Semantics and Rvalue References: Introduction of move semantics to optimize memory management, especially in copy and assignment operations.
• Multithreading with std::thread: Support for concurrent and multithreaded programming through std::thread and other concurrency tools like mutex.
• Uniform Initialization: New way to initialize variables and containers more intuitively and without ambiguity.
• Smart Pointers (std::unique_ptr, std::shared_ptr): Smart pointers that help manage memory automatically, reducing memory leak problems.

• Lambda Improvements: Ability to capture variables by move, allowing greater control over data usage in lambda functions.
• Return Type Deduction: Deduction of the return type in functions, which makes the code cleaner and allows for greater flexibility.
• std::make_unique: New function to facilitate the creation of std::unique_ptr without needing to explicitly specify the type.
• constexpr Improvements: Expansion of constexpr to evaluate more expressions at compile time.

• std::optional, std::variant, and std::any: New types that simplify the management of optional values (optional), data types with multiple options (variant), and dynamically typed variables (any).
• If and Switch with Initializers: Allows declaring and assigning variables in the same line as an if or switch statement.
• Parallel STL: Introduction of parallel operations in STL algorithms, optimizing performance in multithreaded applications.
• New Memory Control Tools: With std::byte for low-level byte manipulation and std::string_view for working with substrings efficiently.
• filesystem Library: New library for handling files and directories in a direct and standard way.

• Concepts: Allow defining constraints for data types in templates, improving clarity and control in generic programming.
• Ranges (ranges): Facilitates the manipulation of data sequences and collections, simplifying code.
• Coroutines: Introduction of coroutines to facilitate asynchronous and cooperative programming.
• Modules: Alternative to traditional header files, which improves compilation time and better organizes code.
• std::format: New library for formatting strings, similar to printf but more flexible and safe.
• Integrated Namespaces (namespace): Support for nested namespaces that simplifies code organization and readability.

• Expansion of std::expected: Introduction of std::expected to manage returns that may fail, offering an alternative to exceptions.
• Coroutine Continuation: Improved support for coroutines to simplify the handling of asynchronous functions.
• Module Improvements: Refinements to the module system introduced in C++20, making it more flexible and optimized.
• Greater Integration with constexpr: New constexpr capabilities that allow evaluating more types of functions and expressions at compile time.
• Compatibility with Safer Type Systems: Includes more type safety in the standard library and improves interoperability with modern languages.