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August 2013

New paper: N3710, Specifying the absence of "out of thin air" results (LWG2265) -- Hans Boehm et al.

By Blog Staff | Aug 31, 2013 07:47 AM | Tags: None

A new WG21 paper is available. A copy is linked below, and the paper will also appear in the next normal WG21 mailing. If you are not a committee member, please use the comments section below or the std-proposals forum for public discussion.

Document number: N3710

Date: 2013-08-29

Specifying the absence of "out of thin air" results (LWG2265)

by Hans Boehm, Mark Batty, Brian Demsky, Olivier Giroux, Paul McKenney, Peter Sewell, Francesco Zappa Nardelli, et al.

Excerpt:

The C++11 memory model specified the semantics of shared ordinary and atomic objects. There is one small part of this specification that we always recognized was dubious. The specification in 1.10 of weakly ordered atomics allows an atomic load to essentially see, or not see, the result of any racing store. In the case of explicit very weak memory ordering specifications, this can lead to "causal cycles" and highly counterintuitive results. ...

Essentially this issue has been an open issue in the Java specification for about 10 years. The major advantage that we have in C++ is that the problem is confined to non-synchronizing atomics, i.e. memory_order_relaxed, and some memory_order_consume uses (or read-modify-write operations that effectively weaken the ordering on either the read or write to one of those). Many of us expect those to be rarely used. ...

This proposal benefitted from a lengthy email discussion involving participants listed at the beginning of this paper, and others. This provided very useful input resulting in improvements to this proposal. It unfortunately resulted in neither a clear consensus in that group, nor an alternate proposal with clearly better consensus behind it. Not all of the listed contributors necessarily support this proposal. Since I don't believe there is support for maintaining the status quo, I nonetheless bring forward this proposal. Mark Batty and Peter Sewell are currently considering submitting additional late papers on this topic, including an alternate proposal. ...

New paper: N3709: Minutes for July 2013 Santa Clara SG1 Meeting -- J Hoberock, A Mackintosh, H Boehm

By Blog Staff | Aug 31, 2013 07:44 AM | Tags: None

A new WG21 paper is available. A copy is linked below, and the paper will also appear in the next normal WG21 mailing. If you are not a committee member, please use the comments section below or the std-proposals forum for public discussion.

Document number: N3709

Date: 2013-08-29

Minutes for July 2013 Santa Clara SG1 Meeting

by Jared Hoberock, Alasdair Mackintosh, Hans Boehm

Excerpt:

This meeting took place July 25-26, in Santa Clara, CA. We thank Nvidia for hosting the meeting.

New paper: N3722, Resumable Functions -- Niklas Gustafsson, Deon Brewis, Herb Sutter, Sana Mithani

By Blog Staff | Aug 30, 2013 04:45 PM | Tags: None

A new WG21 paper is available. A copy is linked below, and the paper will also appear in the next normal WG21 mailing. If you are not a committee member, please use the comments section below or the std-proposals forum for public discussion.

Document number: N3722

Date: 2013-08-30

Resumable Functions

by Niklas Gustafsson, Deon Brewis, Herb Sutter, Sana Mithani

Excerpt:

While presenting a proposal that can be adopted or rejected in isolation, this document is related to N3721. The reader is advised to read both as a unit and to consider how the two build on each other for synergy. Reading them in their assigned numeric order is strongly advised.

New in this version: proposed wording for a TS, including language to generalize its applicability to other types than future/shared_future; a section on a possible extension to include generator functions; going back to use of the word ‘resumable’ instead of ‘async’ as the syntactic marker of resumable functions.

New paper: N3721, Improvements to std::future and Related APIs -- Gustafsson Laksberg Sutter Mithani

By Blog Staff | Aug 30, 2013 04:34 PM | Tags: None

A new WG21 paper is available. A copy is linked below, and the paper will also appear in the next normal WG21 mailing. If you are not a committee member, please use the comments section below or the std-proposals forum for public discussion.

Document number: N3721

Date: 2013-08-30

Improvements to std::future and Related APIs

by Niklas Gustafsson, Artur Laksberg, Herb Sutter, Sana Mithani

Excerpt:

This proposal is an evolution of the functionality of std::future/std::shared_future. It details additions which can enable wait free compositions of asynchronous operations.

This document supersedes N3634: the title has been changed, and the proposed changes have been modified to be expressed as edits to the C++ Draft Standard.

New in this version: implicit unwrapping (one level) of future<future<R>> to future<R> in then().

... C++ suffers an evident deficit of asynchronous operations compared to other languages, thereby hindering programmer productivity. JavaScript on Windows 8 has promises (then, join and any), .NET has the Task Parallel Library (ContinueWith, WhenAll, WhenAny), C#/VB has the await keyword (asynchronous continuations), and F# has asynchronous workflows. When compared to these languages, C++ is less productive for writing I/O-intensive applications and system software. In particular writing highly scalable services becomes significantly more difficult. ...

Revisiting the BlackBerry 10 NDK

By Meeting C++ | Aug 29, 2013 11:58 AM | Tags: intermediate experimental boost blackberry basics

I've been looking at the BlackBerry 10 NDK the last weeks, and did write about it to share some thoughts and results.

Revisiting the BlackBerry 10 NDK

by Jens Weller

From the article:

The last few weeks I did look again at the BlackBerry 10 NDK, as a client had asked for help and training. I offered to adapt my Qt Introduction course to the BlackBerry plattform, and offered my advice...

Before I start, a short paragraph about Apps and C++. People coming from Java or .NET often don't understand the need to make Apps in C++...

New paper: N3744, Proposing [[pure]] -- Walter Brown

By Blog Staff | Aug 29, 2013 09:11 AM | Tags: None

A new WG21 paper is available. A copy is linked below, and the paper will also appear in the next normal WG21 mailing. If you are not a committee member, please use the comments section below or the std-proposals forum for public discussion.

Document number: N3744

Date: 2013-08-30

Proposing [[pure]]

by Walter Brown

Excerpt:

Following significant prior art, this paper proposes a pure attribute to specify that a function
or statement is free of observable side effects.

New paper: N3743, Conditionally-supported Special Math Functions for C++14, v2 -- Walter Brown

By Blog Staff | Aug 29, 2013 09:09 AM | Tags: None

A new WG21 paper is available. A copy is linked below, and the paper will also appear in the next normal WG21 mailing. If you are not a committee member, please use the comments section below or the std-proposals forum for public discussion.

Document number: N3743

Date: 2013-08-30

Conditionally-supported Special Math Functions for C++14, v2

by Walter Brown

Excerpt:

This paper proposes to merge International Standard 29124:2010, “Extensions to the C++
Library to support mathematical special functions,” into C++14 as a conditionally-supported
standard library feature.

New paper: N3742, Three <random>-related Proposals, v2 -- Walter Brown

By Blog Staff | Aug 29, 2013 09:05 AM | Tags: None

A new WG21 paper is available. A copy is linked below, and the paper will also appear in the next normal WG21 mailing. If you are not a committee member, please use the comments section below or the std-proposals forum for public discussion.

Document number: N3742

Date: 2013-08-30

Three <random>-related Proposals, v2

by Walter Brown

Excerpt:

This paper proposes (1) to add one function template to <algorithm>, (2) to add a few novice-friendly
functions to <random>, and (3) to deprecate some related <cstdlib> legacy interfaces.
The unifying factor in this tripartite proposal is the entities’ respective connection with the
random number component of the C++11 standard library.

New paper: N3741, Toward Opaque Typedefs for C++1Y, v2 -- Walter Brown

By Blog Staff | Aug 29, 2013 09:02 AM | Tags: None

A new WG21 paper is available. A copy is linked below, and the paper will also appear in the next normal WG21 mailing. If you are not a committee member, please use the comments section below or the std-proposals forum for public discussion.

Document number: N3741

Date: 2013-08-30

Toward Opaque Typedefs for C++1Y, v2

by Walter Brown

Excerpt:

Although this paper is self-contained, it logically follows our discussion, begun several years ago in
N1706 and continued in N1891, of a feature oft-requested for C++: an opaque typedef, sometimes
termed a strong typedef. The earlier of those works was presented to WG21 on 2004-10-20 during
the Redmond meeting, and the later work was presented during the Berlin meeting on 2005-04-06.
Both presentations resulted in very strong encouragement to continue development of such a
language feature. Alas, the press of other obligations has until recently not permitted us to
resume our explorations.

Now with C++11 as a basis, we return to the topic. Where our earlier thinking and nomenclature
seem still valid, we will repeat and amplify our exposition; where we have new insights, we will
follow our revised thinking and present for EWG discussion a high-level proposal for a C++1Y
language feature to be known as an opaque alias. ...