The CppCon 2014 conference program has been posted for the upcoming September conference. We previously posted part of the CppCon program in six program preview blog posts, each containing a few session titles and abstracts. Several people have expressed that they prefer being able to absorb the program in this way as "bite-sized" blog posts, so we're going to continue posting a few additional sessions at a time this way, sometimes with commentary, until the entire conference program has been posted also via this blog series.

Note: Early Bird registration ends tomorrow.

Multi-device development across iOS, Android, Mac, Windows, and other platforms is increasingly in demand, and C++ is the only modern language supported on all of those platforms. We find many developers are still unaware of how C++ is being quietly adopted across major companies as the language of choice for sharing code to develop their cross-platform apps -- even in apps originally written in other platform-specific languages. In these talks, the CppCon program covers development in this exciting modern area, and we think you'll see that the speakers are Those Who Know and Those Who Do in some of the leading efforts in our industry.

In this post:

• Practical Cross-Platform Mobile C++ Development at Dropbox
• From the Dropbox Trenches: A Deep Dive into Two Cross-Platform Mobile Apps Written in C++
• UI Prototyping and Development for Multiple Devices in C++
• Multiplatform C++

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Practical Cross-Platform Mobile C++ Development at Dropbox

The conventional wisdom of multi-platform mobile development comes down to two choices: write all your complex logic at least twice or settle for a slow, non-native experience for your users. Come learn how Dropbox has embraced a third option, where fast, cross-platform code in C++ is married to a smooth, native UI for the best of both worlds.

In Dropbox’s new generation of iOS and Android apps, we leverage the strengths of the platform frameworks while only writing and maintaining one version of complex logic like data syncing. We’ll explain the benefits and pitfalls of interfacing C++ to platform-specific code via Objective-C++ and JNI and how code generation has freed us from much of the effort involved. We’ll share the benefits we’ve gained from C++11/14, as well as the drawbacks, and how we’ve overcome each platform’s quirks. Finally, we’ll share tools that let you try this out yourselves.

Speakers:

• Alex Allain, Platforms and Libraries Lead, Dropbox. Alex has been writing about C++ since 1998, when he started Cprogramming.com. In 2012, he published Jumping into C++ to teach new programmers how to think like a professional C++ programmer. At Dropbox, Alex leads the Platforms and Libraries team, helping make the dream of cross-platform C++11 a reality. Prior to Dropbox, Alex led a team at Liquid Machines focused on injecting code into applications to perform binary hooking.
• Andrew Twyman, Software Engineer, Dropbox. Andrew Twyman has been developing products and libraries in C++ for almost 10 years. He loves building robust systems and solving tricky low-level problems. Starting in 2012, Andrew helped spearhead Dropbox’s new approach to cross-platform mobile development. Now on the Platforms and Libraries team, Andrew is helping bring cross-platform goodness to Dropbox’s new generation of mobile and desktop apps. Prior to Dropbox, Andrew was an architect at Liquid Machines, where shared libraries supported parallel development of more products than there were developers.

From the Dropbox Trenches: A Deep Dive into Two Cross-Platform Mobile Apps Written in C++

At Dropbox we’ve spent the last year and a half building two cross platform mobile apps: the email client, Mailbox, and the photo gallery, Carousel. We started with the goal of a native look and feel with seamless performance but also needed to leverage a small team to build these apps on multiple platforms. We ultimately accomplished this by using C++ to share significant amounts of code in each app.

We’ll cover what portions of our apps we built in C++ and why we left some portions in the platform languages of Java and Objective-C, deep diving into some of the most important components. We’ll also discuss some unexpected benefits, areas we faced technical and human challenges, and some tips and tricks that you can use to leverage C++ to build very high performance apps.

Speakers:

• Tony Grue, Engineering Manager, Dropbox. Tony has been building mobile applications, mostly in C++, for the last 8 years.  He worked on Dropbox for Android as it grew from a few million to more than 100 million installs. Now he leads the Carousel for Android and lib-carousel teams at Dropbox. Before Dropbox, Tony was at Microsoft where he contributed to the email, SMS, and visual search clients on Windows Phone.
• Steven Kabbes, Mobile Engineer, Dropbox. Steven was a member of the founding team of Mailbox and designed many of the core email sync algorithms that power it. Since then he has been working on cross platform mobile building the C++ layer of Mailbox which powers clients on iOS, Android and Mac. Steven is especially passionate about developer libraries, specifically ones that enable fast iteration on the next generation of products. https://avatars3.githubusercontent.com/u/592178

UI Prototyping and Development for Multiple Devices in C++

Using C++ for multi-device user interface and app development should be pretty straightforward. However, since the Standard C++ Language and Library specification does not specify a user interface library, it’s actually quite challenging given that the two leading mobile platforms provide non-C++ User Interface APIs. Even more challenging is the new world of mobile devices and the myriad form factors, layouts, resolutions, sensors, and services that an application developer has to deal with. Plus, the deployment model for remote devices makes testing UI changes slower due to the increased build and turnaround time. This session will describe how C++ can be used effectively for multi-device UI development and also deliver a rapid prototyping experience to minimize the deployment time to the device for testing.

Speaker: John "JT" Thomas, Director of Product Management at Embarcadero Technologies. JT has more than 15 years of product management and product development experience including hands-on experience with the early versions of Delphi and C++Builder at Borland Software. Previously, JT held product management positions at mobile Linux vendor MontaVista Software and at Research in Motion. He earned his Computer Science degree from University of California, Santa Cruz and his MBA and MSE from San Jose State University.Website: http://www.embarcadero.comTwitter handle: @FireMonkeyPM

Multiplatform C++

C++ is a multiplatform language, yet many difficulties arise when you want the same code to compile properly and function identically on different platforms. If you put aside the obvious system programming related obstacles, and the differences you might have between compilers (especially when it comes to supporting C++11 and C++14), you come to the surprising conclusion that what is truly hard is all the "little things" you didn't anticipate.

This talk will be about our experience with our own software, quasardb, that runs every day on three OS (FreeBSD, Linux and Windows), is built with three compilers (clang, gcc and msvc) and supports two architectures (IA32 and AMD64).

How to build natively the same software on Windows and Linux, provided that they have radically different tool chains? How to work around the subtle, but existing differences between Linux and FreeBSD? How do you solve cross-tools, cross-platform file editing problems? How to prevent your maintenance costs from increasing dramatically?

Speaker: Edouard Alligand, Chairman & CTO, Bureau 14. Edouard has more than thirteen years of professional experience in software engineering. After years hacking the kernel of various operating systems, Edouard founded Bureau 14, the home of the hyperscalable database quasardb. Combining an excellent knowledge of low level programming with a perverse love for template meta-programming, Edouard likes to come up with uncompromising solutions to seemingly impossible problems. He lives in Paris, France. Website: https://blogea.bureau14.fr/ http://twitter.com/edouarda14