While we wait for CppCon 2015 in September, we’re featuring videos of some of the 100+ talks from CppCon 2014. Here is today’s feature:

Type Deduction and Why You Care

by Scott Meyers

(watch on YouTube) (watch on Channel 9)

Summary of the talk:

C++98 had template type deduction, and it worked so intuitively, there was little need to understand what took place under the covers. C++11 extends type deduction to include universal references, applies it to auto variables and lambda expressions, then throws in a special auto-only deduction rule. C++14 pushes the boundary further, adding two forms of function return type deduction (auto and decltype(auto)) for arbitrary functions and offering auto parameters for lambdas. The result is that what could be treated as a black box in C++98 has become a topic that practicing C++ developers really need to understand. This talk will give you the information you need to do that.