I expect OpenCL will move more and more towards C++ -- CUDA (the NVidia proprietary counterpart) also started off as C, but is now much closer to C++. (e.g. uses C++ compiler for host-side code, templated kernels, etc).

C++ might not end up being faster, but it certainly has no reason to be slower*. Well-written C++ and C should run at about the same speed. However, C++ has the advantage of allowing you to use high-level constructs when performance isn't as much of an issue.

* this is contingent on your compiler -- if you're using some compiler from a decade ago, some constructs (e.g. templates) may emit shockingly poor code

C++ is great anywhere you need performance. Numerical computing, scientific computing, image processing, computer vision, machine learning, etc -- all of these benefit greatly from C++, as you can use it as a high-level language in the non-performance critical parts, but at the same time, be able to optimize effectively in the places where it matters.

Sounds like you're looking for C++ and std::string

Of course, you're not using auto_ptr anymore, right? It's been deprecated in C++11, and there's little to no reason to use it in favor of unique_ptr. auto_ptr was the attempt at implementing unique_ptr semantics prior to having rvalue references as part of the language. As for the possible pitfalls... shared_ptr can still fall prey to cyclical dependencies, but unique_ptr is very good for enforcing ownership semantics.

I find it amazing that there are still birthers out there.

Not sure if you're trolling, but I'll bite. This is very common in security literature -- it's always Eve, Alice and Bob, with Eve trying to intercept/subvert Alice and Bob's communications. Nothing to do with PC. That's just how it's done.

Sure, but you'll need a time machine

Fortran doesn't have pointer aliasing. This allows the compiler to perform more aggressive optimizations

Of course, the STL was written by Stepanov before C++ was standardized. What the interviewer probably meant to ask about is the C++ standard library, which is similar but different. Or maybe they really were asking about the STL, in which case I wholeheartedly agree that bullets were dodged.

Wasteland 2 comes out this Friday (9/19) and Pillars of Eternity is still in Beta. Unless you've got a time machine that's about as new as it gets.

If only, Los Angeles has a vanishingly small subway system. One subway line that goes from downtown LA to North Hollywood, and an aborted line that was meant to go to Santa Monica but only made it to Wilshire.

Except that the original question only specified the parameter to be an integer, not whether it was signed or not (nor what range of values it could take)

lambdas can be faster than say, function pointers, mostly because the compiler can have more information about pointer aliasing. They should be a wash speed-wise relative to loops. Also, you say functors, which can take a few forms; this can be a callable object (e.g. a struct with its operator() overloaded, no templates needed), a stored lambda function, or a std::function object (e.g. as created through std::bind, lambdas, etc). They all look rather different; do you find all of them unreadable? Not all of them require 'enormous' header files