Today, if you have a question, you search the web or have ask an AI chatbot. In the early 1980s there was the C Programming Language, but:

The C++ programming language had a creator, an organically emerging user community followed by a standards committee, and a vibrant ecosystem of writers and contributors.

The ecosystem part is often forgotten.

The Way We Were

The story of one of the premier publications of that ecosystem, The C/C++ User Journal, begins with the BDS C Users’ Group, a community formed around Leor Zolman’s BDS C compiler for CP/M systems. The group published a small newsletter beginning in 1981 and grew out of the early user-group culture that flourished before the Internet became widely available.

Knowledge traveled through:

The user group was often the center of the community. Many groups operated BBSes, where members dialed in over noisy modems to exchange messages, source code, and software. Those systems were the social networks of their day. 

As the C language grew, the newsletter evolved into the C User’s Group Newsletter (CUG), and by 1985 there was also a separate publication called The C Journal, edited by Rex Jaeschke. Eventually those efforts merged to become C Users Journal (CUJ).

By the late 1980s and early 1990s, CUJ had become one of the central publications for professional C programmers. Looking at old tables of contents is like reading a who’s who of the then thriving C community: P. J. Plauger (also the senior editor), Rex Jaeschke, Dan Saks, and many others. I joined CUJ in 1992 as the “Code Capsules” columnist and later became its senior editor. Initially I uploaded my articles to the CUJ BBS by a modem attached to an acoustic coupler holding my phone’s handset.

In 1994 the magazine became known as the C/C++ Users Journal (but still using the “CUJ” moniker) and became one of the premier venues for C++ publications, with pieces by the likes of Bjarne Stroustrup, Andrew Koenig, Herb Sutter, Scott Meyers, Andrei Alexandrescu, Steve Dewhurst, Pete Becker, Matthew Austern, Greg Colvin, and many more.

Then came another transition.

The C++ Source

The web was changing how technical information was distributed. Print magazines were under pressure. When C/C++ Users Journal was ultimately absorbed into the orbit of Dr. Dobb’s and discontinued in late 2003, an important gathering place for C++ writers disappeared.

As the then-dismissed senior editor of CUJ I reached out to the community of C++ writers for ideas on to find a new home. What struck me most was how quickly the community rallied around the idea. The result was The C++ Source, graciously hosted by Bill Venners at artima.com. To my delight, many of the most respected voices in the C++ community agreed to participate. The editorial board included David Abrahams, Andrei Alexandrescu, Matthew Austern, Walter Bright, Jim Coplien, Kevlin Henney, Howard Hinnant, Andrew Koenig, Angelika Langer, Dan Saks, Herb Sutter, Bjarne Stroustrup, and many others.

Looking through the archive today is a reminder that many ideas we now take for granted were already being discussed. Howard Hinnant, Bjarne Stroustrup, and Bronek Kozicki published an early article on move semantics years before the feature became part of the language standard.

Looking back, The C++ Source represented a transitional moment. The community had outgrown print, but the modern ecosystem of blogs, podcasts, social media, and isocpp.org had not yet fully emerged. For four years, The C++ Source provided a home for writers and readers during that transition.

Today anyone can publish a technical article with a few keystrokes. In 2004 the challenge was different: preserving a community after one of its most important institutions disappeared. The C++ Source was our attempt to do exactly that.