Origin of the C language name

Question

Programmer in C and C++, currently attempting to learn C#. I purchased the Wrox publishing book Professional C#.

I questioned the addition of the ++ prefix to C while switching to C++. Later, I understood that ++ was added to C as a 'Object Oriented Extension' since it is an increment operator.

What does the number "" mean in C#?

Answer 1

Well, To answer this question lets start with the language C++. As you said C++ introduced new concepts (OOP) to existing programming language 'C' which was available at that time. It is well known that '++' is a suffix that when used adds (extends) the existing number by 1. Following the same analogy the '++' was added after C to signify an extension of existing C language.

Same thing happened with C#. Since there were new additions to the existing C++ language it could have been named C++++. But that did made sense from a developer point of view and hence C++++ is not generally accepted and hence it was named C#.

However if you put a little attention to # you can find 4 '+' signs arranged as 2x2 matrix. In other words, chop the # from center vertically and horizontally and you will end up with 4 '+' signs.