Interviews with Bjarne Stroustrup

Modified May 12, 2023

Please note that many of these interviews are written interviews based on submitted questions and many have been consider "publication quality" (and published in magazines and/or as book chapters). If you want to get an idea of what C++ is and was meant to be reading an interview or two may be a good approach.

Video interviews have become popular; for more video interviews, see my video collection.

If you have an interview that I have missed please send me a link.

• Lucio Bragagnolo for Apogeonline: Bjarne Stroustrup, il creatore di C++. Original English version. May 2023.
• Paul Krill for Infoworld: C++ creator Bjarne Stroustrup defends its safety. Here is the unedited version. January 2023.

• Podcast interview with Marcelo Pinheiro from Os programadores: Bjarne Stroustrup - C++ inventor - Computer Science Professor at Columbia University. November 2022.
• Interview with Matthew Sacks for "The Bitsource" Exclusive Interview with Bjarne Stroustrup, Inventor of the C++ programming language. November 2022.
• Interview by Elizabeth Lvova for Evrone: C++ Creator Bjarne Stroustrup Interview. April 2022.
• Interview by Lucia El Asri Soto from the Spanish university U-tad: Bjarne Stroustrup, father of C++: "The best software designers have important skills outside of computer science". and the Spanish version. February 2022.

• Writeup by David Cassel of an online AMA hosted by John Regehr: C++ Creator Bjarne Stroustrup Weighs in on Distributed Systems, Type Safety and Rust. The AMA video. August 2020.
• Interview by Owen Hughes for TechRepublic C++ programming language: How it became the invisible foundation for everything, and what's next November 2020. The raw text of the interview.
• Interview with Silke Hahn from iX Developer Magazine Tief verwurzelt in C++. Fall 2020. The English source: Answers from Bjarne.
• Interview by Roberto V. Zicari for ODBMS Industry Watch: Thirty years of C++: Interview with Bjarne Stroustrup. July 2020.
• Interview by Christophe Pichaud for the French magazine Programmez: Interview exclusive : Bjarne Stroustrup createur de C++. English notes. April 2020.
• Podcast interview by Eugene Katella and friends Varied topics including engineering, education, C++, and interviewing March 10, 2020.

• An interview by infoQ Father of C++: A Peppery Chicken Fan, and C++20 Will Be Great | Geek archives in Chinese (including a short video at the end). Part of infoQ's "Geek archives." The long Q&A version in English. Novenber 2019.
• An interview by Sonny Li from Codecademy: Talking C++. September 2019.
• An interview by Dmitry Kostiuk from the Linux Eastern Europe Conference: Interview about C++ and open-source. August 2019.
• Menetrend szerint érkezik a C++20 English source. May 2019.
• Exkluzív: Interjú Bjarne Stroustrup-pal, a C++ atyjával English source. May 2019.
• An interview by Jordi Pérez Colomé for the Spanish daily newspaper El Pais: Nuestra civilización depende igual del software que del agua. In Spanish. Translation back to English. January 2019.

• Emilia David for Waters Technology: Coding in the Trenches: Bjarne Stroustrup, Morgan Stanley. November 2018.
• Thomas Claburn for The Register: What's all the C Plus Fuss? Bjarne Stroustrup warns of dangerous future plans for his C++. June 2018.

• Alumni interview: Q&A med Bjarne Stroustrup, Managing Director for Morgan Stanley i New York. October 2017.
• Interview by Quinn Mason for MontrealInTechnology: An interview with Bjarne Stroustrup, creator of C++. Montreal. September 2017.
• Interview by Pramod Shadishidhaa: Mapping the Journey. A podcast with transcript. July 2017.
• Interview by Rob Irving and Jason Turner for cppcast: Past, Present, and Future of C++. A podcast (sorry, no transcript). May 2017.
• Interview by Jagmeet Singh for OSFY Magazine. May 2017 Issue. C++: Past, prestent, and future. Based on this raw material.
• Interview by Lærke Cecilie Lindegård for Altinget: IT-pioner: Afrundede mennesker klarer sig bedst. In Danish.Based on this raw material. May 2017.
• Interview by Otto Lerche Kristiansen for Dagbladed Information: Dansk it-pioner: Betragt IT i undervisningen som en distraktion. In Danish. Based on this raw material. March 2017.
• Interview med Sofie Rud fra Dagbladet Boersen: Problemet er passionen. In Danish. February 2017.

• Dan Butcher for efinancialcareers: Meet the Morgan Stanley MD who invented the C++ programming language. December 2016.
• an interviw with iTuring: Bjarne Stroustrup: A simple way of expressing and idea can be optimal in real-world situations. Chinese version. November 2016.
• Peter Martin Moos Hoffmann for University of Aarhus: Alumni interview: Q&A med Bjarne Stroustrup, Managing Director for Morgan Stanley i New York. In Danish. November 2016.
• Simula Discussion led by Richard E. Nance with Birger M�ller-Pederson, Bjarne Stroustrup, and Ole Lehrmann Madsen. Video. North Carolina Stete University. July 2016.
• Paul Krill for Infoworld: Q&A: Bjarne Stroustrup Previews C++17 . Here is the unedited version. March 2016.
• Ama with the Danish Reddit. Mostly in Danish. January 2016.

• An interview by Aur�lien Regat-Barrel to celebrate the 30th anniversary of TC++PL and the first commercial release of C++. October 2015.
• The Setup: What do people use to get stuff done?. I wonder why people care? July 2015.
• An interview by Sergio De Simone Stroustrup: Thoughts on C++17 - An Interview for InfoQ. April 2015.
• Interview for the Computer History Museum by Paul McJones: Oral History of Bjarne Sroustrup. February 2015. This is a transcript of video. There is also a version where the transcripe is synchronized with the video complete with a search function.

• An interview for the communication of the CCF (China Computer Federation) In Chinese and the English original". November 2014.
• Dan Mygind for Prosa: Interview med Bjarne Stroustrup: "C med klasser g�r koden hurtig og effektiv" og "Det moderne C++ er ikke din fars C++". pp16-17, 18-19 October 2014. In Danish.
• The German magazine Heise Developer: Interview mit C++-Sch�pfer Bjarne Stroustrup. August 2014. English text.
• Slash dot Bjarne Stroustrup Answers Your Questions. August 2014.
• Richard Morris for Simple Talk: Bjarne Strostrup, and Programmers With Class. August 2014.
• Bill Wong for Electronic Design: Bjarne Stroustrup Talks About C++14. August 2014.
• Paul Krill for InfoWorld: Stroustrup: Why the 35-year-old C++ still dominates 'real' dev. August 2014.
• An interview for ACCU CVu by Emyr Williams. May 2014.

• An interview by Aditya Bhushan Dwivedi for Your Story.
• An interview by William Wong for Electronic Design Magazine ``about C++ and its development.''
• An interview by Danny Kalev for InformIT about TC++PL4, C++11, security, garbage collection, and more. May 2013.

• An interview by Dawei Yao for the Association of Chinese Experts in Denmark. May 2012.
• An interview by Paul Krill for InfoWorld Stroustrup reveals what's new in C++ 11 (not my choice of title).
• Video interview with Charles Severance for IEEE Computer about my IEEE Computer Magazine paper Software Development for Infrastructure.

• Interview with Debasish Jana for The Computer Society of India:
  • Part 1: Paradigm & Prilosophy, June 2011.
  • Part 2: Evolution of C++ towards C++0x, July 2011.
  • Part 3: C++0x Technicalities and Intricacies, August 2011.
• Interview with Lukasz Lopuszanski for The Software Developer's Journal: About C++ and... few more things. Version where the typesetters haven't introduced bugs. March 2011.
• Interview with Danny Kalev for Codeguru: About the Imminent C++0x Standard. January 2011.

• Interview by Michael Calore for Wired Magazine: Oct. 14, 1985: C++ Adds to Programming celebrating C++'s 25th anniversary as a commercial language. Here are the usual enlightened and polite slashdot comments. October 2010. Persian translation by Saeed Amrollahi Boyouki.
• Interview for CNews: The Future of C++ (in Russian). Here are The English bits. October 2010.
• Interview for 3DNEWS: Bjarne Stroustrup: physicist and lyricist (in Russian). Here are The English bits. October 2010.
• Video interview (with transripts) by Max Miller for "big think": The unsung heros of the digital age. August 2010. (aimed at a more general audience).
• Audio interview by A. Killer for Deutschlandfunk (German National Public Radio): C++ inside (in German; I'm mostly dubbed). June 2010.
• Bjarne Stroustrup vil loese verdens praktiske problemer by Niels Ebdrup. In Danish (obviously :-)). May 2010.
• Interview by Ryou Ezoe C++0x from now to the release of the Standard for a new Japanese mazagine called Programmers' Grimoire. April 2010.
• Bjarne Stroustrup: Interview with Bjarne Stroustrup: Inventor of the C++ Programming Language. in Making it Big in Software: Get the Job. Work the Org. Become Great. by Sam Lightstone. Prentice Hall. March 2010.
• Interview by Andrea Leganza for the Italian magazine Io Programmo entitled A Conlloquio Con Il Papa Del C++. March 2010. The original version in English.

• Interview by Danny Kalev for DevX: On Concepts and the Future of C++ August 2009.
• Short interview with app2us, mostly on education. May 2009.
• Bjarne Stroustrup: C++. Chapter in Federico Biancuzzi and Shane Warden: C++ in "Masterminds of Programming -- conversations with the creators of major programming languages". O'Reilly. ISBN 978-0-596-51517-1. March 2009. (Winner of a Jolt award).

• A "geek of the week" interview on quality of software, education, and C++ for Simple-talk by Richard Morris. December 2008.
• An interview by James Mguire "On educating software developers" for Datamation. December 2008. slashdotted.
• A series of short interviews for a codezine by Takashi Toyota. Fall 2008.
• An interview by Danny Kalev The State of the Language for DevX.com. August 2008. slashdotted.
• An interview by Naomi Hamilton The A-Z of programming languages: C++ for Computerworld Australia. June 2008. Re-posted on Computerworld.com and slashdotted.
• An interview On C++0x, my forthcoming book, etc. by Danny Kalev for InformIt. April 2008.
• An interview On the evolution of languages for MSDN Magazine by Howard Dierking. Vol 23, No 5. April 2008.
• An interview on C++0x, the education of programmers, and more for Dr. Dobb's Magazine by James Buchanan. February 2008.
• An interview for a Japanese book by Takashi Toyota. February 2008.
• An crazyengineers January 2008.

• An interview by TopLanguage Group for CSDN (The Chinesversion of CSDN "Programmer" Magazine"). December 2007.
• An interview focused on innovation, and a follow up by Roberto Zicari for ODBMS.org. November 2007.

• An interview for MIT Technical Review by Jason Pontin: Trouble with programming and More trouble with programming. This is a nicely edited version of my somewhat longer and more detailed original text. This mild mannered interview caused flamewars on slashdot and artima (and more on artima). December 2006.
• A Frontier Visionary Interview C++: past, present, and future. September 2006.
• A short interview with Texas A&M Engineer Research Magazine. September 2006.
• A short interview on //: Bjarne Stroustrup on teaching C++. August 2006.
• An interview by a blogger of a group of "Great programmers" including, Linus Torvalds, Guido Van Rossum, and James Gosling. Summer 2006.
• An interview and discussion with a group of mostly high-school students. July 2006.

• Article by Pierre Vandeginste based on interview for INRIA: Bjarne Stroustrup: le père de C++, un langage qui a de la classe. June 2004 (in French)
• Elegance and other design ideals (Part 4: Aspects of software design, the importance of libraries, protecting programmers from themselves, the dangers of premature abstraction, and the essence of elegance). Interview by Bill Venners for Artima.com. February 2004.
• Abstraction and Efficiency (Part 3: Raising the level of abstraction, "programming is understanding", and the difference between premature and prudent optimization). Interview by Bill Venners for Artima.com. February 2004.

• Modern C++ Style (Part 2: Multiple inheritance, Abstract classes, multi-paradigm programming, and "resource acquisition is initialization"). Interview by Bill Venners for Artima.com. November 2003.
• The C++ Style Sweet Spot (Part 1: C-style, object orientation, invariants, simple interfaces). Interview by Bill Venners for Artima.com. September 2003.
• Interview by Aleksey V. Dolya for the Linux Journal. Posted August 28, 2003. This interview was originally done for a Russian magazine, Januaray 10, 2002. Here is the Russian version.

• Interview by Kyle Schurman for CPU Magazine. August 2002. Vol.2, Issue 8. (printable version).
• Interview by Rogue Wave. April 2002.
• Interview by Pierre Tran from the French e-magazine "Developpeur Reference". March 2002. English version.

• Interview by the Chinese e-magazine "C++ View". August 2001.
• Interview by the Turkish magazine Biltek. May 2001. In Turkish. English version.
• Interview by Danny Kalev for linuxworld.com. March 2001.

• B. Stroustrup and Tim Lindholm: The Future of OOP. The Future of Software Magazine. Winter 2000/2001, vol 1, no. 1. Italian translation: Computer Programming n 100 - Marzo 2001, Supplemento. Japanese translation: "The Future of Software" book. ISBN 4-88135-980-0.
• Interview by Quinn Tyler Jackson for the Pi Society. November 2000.
• Interview of Dennis Ritchie, Bjarne Strosutrup, and James Gosling by Herb Sutter for the Java Report, 5(7), and the C++ Report, 12(7). July/August 2000.
• Interview by Elden Nelson for the Visual C++ Developers Journal. Vol 3 No 5. June 2000.
• Saba Zamir: Interview with Bjarne Stroustrup ("Bjarne Again"). Application Development Advisor. May/June 2000, Vol.3, No 5.
• Saba Zamir: Interview with Bjarne Stroustrup ("Reflections on ISO Standardization, ..."). The C++ Report. April 2000, Vol 12/No.4
• Interview by slashdot.org from February 2000.
• Interview by Kurt Westh Nielsen for Ingeniøren part1 and part 2 from February 2000. In Danish.

• Interview by Computable from May 1999. In Dutch.
• Interview by Phillipe Lourier for Dr. Dobb's TechNetCast from January 1999. (with video).

• S. Hamilton:The Real Stroustrup Interview. IEEE Computer Magazine, June 1998. Posted with permission from IEEE. (pdf version).
• Interview by Andrew P. Madden from Red Herring magazine, June 1998.

• Interview by Object magazine Online from December 1997.
• Transcript of a short talk followed by a question-and-answers session at the Computer Literacy Bookstore October 1997.
• Interview by Amazon books from late 1997.
• Addison Wesley interview from mid-1997.
• Peter Trott: Programming Languages: Past Present, and Future (sixteen prominent computer scientists assess our field). ACM Sigplan Notices. Vol 32, No 1. January 1997.

• Interview by an Italian journalist given in September 1996.
• Interview by Chuck Allison from the C/C++ Journal, 1996.
• Interview by Amazon books from 1996.
• Interview by Judy Tolliver for a University of Illinois CS department alumni magazine from March 1996.

• An E-mail Conversation with Bjarne Stroustrup by Mike Toms. June 1993.

• Al Stevens: From C to C++ interviews with Dennis Ritchie and Bjarne Stroustrup. Dr. Dobbs Journal. no 159, pp 9,14-17. January 1, 1989.