Introduction
I came into programming from a background in music production and audio engineering. I'd been interested in programming for a long time, but only in the last couple of years have I dug in seriously, working primarily in JavaScript and its libraries and frameworks. I wanted to go deeper and there are so many compelling paths. Of all of them, C++ emerged as a logical next step.
Coming from JavaScript, C++ felt more familiar than I expected. Both derive their basic syntax from C, so control structures like if-else and for loops look familiar. Both support object-oriented programming through classes and methods, and both support functional concepts like first-class functions and closures. But what really caught my attention was noticing the role C++ was playing in audio development. Once I started looking, it kept turning up, in the plugins I use and in the DAWs that host them.
So what makes C++ so widely used in this area? What problems arise in audio development that C++ solves, and what makes it well-suited to solve them?
C++, briefly
