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 handling exceptions (try, catch, throw).
• Input and Output with Streams: Introduction of the stream system (iostream) for data input and output instead of the stdio.h library from C.

• Standard Library Update: Improvements in containers and functions of the STL to optimize performance and stability.
• Template Stability: Improved implementation of templates, resolving limitations encountered after their use in C++98.

• Auto and decltype: Allow automatic type deduction of variables, making code writing and maintenance easier.
• Lambdas and Anonymous Functions: Introduction of lambda functions, which allow defining functions inline, 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: A 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 issues.

• Improvements in Lambdas: 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, making the code cleaner and allowing for greater flexibility.
• std::make_unique: New function to facilitate the creation of std::unique_ptr without needing to specify the type explicitly.
• Improvements in constexpr: 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 Tools for Memory Management: With std::byte for low-level byte manipulation and std::string_view for efficient substring handling.
• filesystem Library: A new library for handling files and directories directly and standardly.

• Concepts: Allow defining constraints for data types in templates, improving clarity and control in generic programming.
• Ranges (ranges): Facilitates the manipulation of sequences and collections of data, simplifying code.
• Coroutines: Introduction of coroutines to facilitate asynchronous and cooperative programming.
• Modules: An alternative to traditional header files, improving compilation time and better organizing 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 organization and readability of code.

• Expansion of std::expected: Introduction of std::expected for managing returns that can fail, offering an alternative to exceptions.
• Continuation in coroutines: Improvement in coroutine support to simplify handling asynchronous functions.
• Improvements in modules: Refinements in the module system introduced in C++20, making it more flexible and optimized.
• Greater integration with constexpr: New capabilities of constexpr that allow evaluating more types of functions and expressions at compile time.
• Compatibility with safer type systems: Includes more safety types in the standard library and improves interoperability with modern languages.