Why do operating systems do low level stuff in C and C++? Why not just C++?
- by Cole Johnson
On the Wikipedia page for Windows, it states the Windows is written in Assembly for the bootloader and task switcher, and C and C++ for kernel routines. This confuses me because AFAIK, you can call C++ functions from an extern "C"'d block as C++ is just C with extra features (all of which can be rewritten in C if you wanted to AFAIK). I can get using C for the kernel functions so pure C apps can use them (like printf and such), but if they can just be wrapped in an extern "C " block, then why code in C?
So my question is: Why would a kernel be written in both C and C++ instead of just C++