> In the late 80s lots of people were doing these OOP -> C things, often literally using the C preprocessor. The C++ compilers were still early (and most of them effectively preprocessors)
IIRC, some early C++ implementations were described (by their implementors) as C++ => C preprocessors.
True. Stroustrup's first implementation Cfront [1] was a C++ to C translator:
> Cfront was the original compiler for C++ (then known as "C with Classes") from around 1983, which converted C++ to C; developed by Bjarne Stroustrup at AT&T Bell Labs. The preprocessor did not understand all of the language and much of the code was written via translations.
cppfront [2] aims to do the same for translating C++ to C++:
> Cppfront is an experimental compiler from a potential C++ 'syntax 2' (Cpp2) to today's 'syntax 1' (Cpp1), to learn some things, prove out some concepts, and share some ideas.
IIRC, some early C++ implementations were described (by their implementors) as C++ => C preprocessors.