CopperSpice: Declarations and Type Conversions

By Ansel Sermersheim | May 22, 2019 12:29 PM | Tags: None

New video on the CopperSpice YouTube Channel:

Declarations and Type Conversions

by Barbara Geller and Ansel Sermersheim

About the video:

In this video we discuss typedefs and using declarations. We look at how to use typedefs to choose appropriate data types when working with containers, and discuss various issues you can encounter if the correct type is not used. We also examine the complex subject of type conversions, and investigate how type casts work and when they are valid.

Please take a look and remember to subscribe!

Grill the committee in Madrid -- std::cpp conference

By jdgarcia | May 22, 2019 12:24 PM | Tags: None

During using std::cpp 2019 we had a "Grill the committee" session.

Grill the committee

by std::cpp conference

About the session:

The panel consisted of

• Axel Naumann (CERN), Swiss National Body.
• Guy Davidson (Creative Assembly), UK National Body.
• Timur Doumler. UK National Body.
• Juan Alday (Bloomberg), US National Body.
• J. Daniel Garcia (University Carlos III of Madrid), Spanish National Body.

Some fun with reactive programming in C++17 -- Joaquín M. López

By jdgarcia | May 21, 2019 12:50 PM | Tags: None

Some sessions from the recent using std::cpp are now online.

Some fun with reactive programming in C++17

by Joaquín M. López

About the session:

Reactive Programming models program behavior as a directed graph of data dependencies where state changes propagate through callbacks. We introduce the main concepts of RP and some motivational examples through the construction of an RP microframework in C++17 using Boost.Signals2.

Joaquín M López Muñoz is a telecommunications engineer from the Technical University of Madrid (UPM). He started programming at 13 and discovered C++ more than 20 years ago. Member of the Spanish C++ Standards Committee and Boost author (MultiIndex, Flyweight, PolyCollection).

Deepening inline -- Jose Caicoya.

By jdgarcia | May 21, 2019 12:46 PM | Tags: None

Some sessions from the recent using std::cpp are now online.

Deepening inline

by Jose Caicoya

About the session:

inline is a reserved C ++ word that has always been associated with the performance of applications. The C ++ Standard indicates that its implementation "is not required to perform this substitution”, which is, to say the least, confusing. In C++ 11 another meaning radically different was added to the keyword: you can qualify the namespaces to get symbolic versioning. Since C++ 17 inline can be applied to variables, allowing them to be declared and defined in the header files without breaking the one definition rule. In this talk these aspects will be covered, exemplifying their use in Qt libraries, as well as indicating several tips on when and how to use inline.

Jose Caicoya (Velneo) studied Applied mathematics and Computing at Oviedo University and was teaching maths and programming for ten years. Beyond his beginnings with the Zx Spectrum, he became a professional developer and nowadays he enjoys programming at Velneo. He is Member and Secretary of the Spanish C++ Standards Committee.

Reflecting C++ -- Axel Naumann

By jdgarcia | May 20, 2019 01:45 PM | Tags: None

Some sessions from the recent using std::cpp are now online.

Reflecting C++

by Axel Naumann

About the session:

What do you use to not get lost in a new city? A map! Some of today's C++ code is as complex as a metropolis, but mapping it still relies on tools to generate descriptions. Wouldn't it be nice to query C++ code from within C++? To answer questions like "which members do you have?" and "what is your type"? That's what reflection is about. This presentation will introduce the magic of the meta land, the features that open up with reflection in your hand.

In your hand? Yes: a first Reflection TS is scheduled to be published in 2019. In parallel the C++ committee is investing a lot of work in making the interfaces nicer, by making it stdlib's first constexpr library. As one of the Reflection TS authors, I will give you a quick tour of where we are and where it is we are going - which is relevant for any library that wants to live in compile-time space.

Axel Naumann (CERN) graduated as an experimental high energy / particle physicist. After a couple of years in The Netherlands and the US, he is now working at CERN, where he is leading the ROOT project https://root.cern, used by tens of thousands of physicists (and others) with varying coding expertise, to analyze about 1 exabytes of serialized C++ data - all in C++, with dynamic Python bindings. Since 2011, Axel is CERN's representative at the ISO C++ committee. Examples of past presentations include talks at 33C3, ACCU and a Google Tech Talk, as well as lectures and trainings.

Will we see C++ standard linear algebra in AAA games? -- Guy Davidson

By jdgarcia | May 20, 2019 01:42 PM | Tags: None

Some sessions from the recent using std::cpp are now online.

Will we see C++ standard linear algebra in AAA games?

by Guy Davidson

About the session:

C++ is getting ready to learn linear algebra. Guy Davidson and Bob Steagall are leading a proposal to introduce vector and matrix types to the standard library. This talk will take a whirlwind tour through the study of linear algebra, the new proposed types and functions, and consider their use in the low-latency games development environment.

Guy Davidson (Creative Assembly) has been writing games for nearly 40 years and has not grown tired of it. He is the Principal Coding Manager at Creative Assembly, makers of the Total War franchise, Alien:Isolation and Halo Wars 2.

C++ Core Guidelines: The Standard Library--Rainer Grimm

By Adrien Hamelin | May 20, 2019 01:10 PM | Tags: community

The guidelines explained further.

C++ Core Guidelines: The Standard Library

by Rainer Grimm

From the article:

Curiously, there is no section to the algorithms of the standard template library (STL) in this chapter. Curiously, because there is a proverb in the C++ community: If you write an explicit loop, you don't know the algorithms of the STL. Anyway. Only for completeness, let me start with the first three rules which provide not much beef...

Text Formatting for a future range based standard library -- Arno Schödl

By jdgarcia | May 19, 2019 07:53 AM | Tags: None

Some sessions from the recent using std::cpp are now online.

Text Formatting for a future range based standard library 

by Arno Schödl

About the session:

In this talk, I want to convince you that the combination of ranges with a bit of metaprogramming makes for a very elegant solution to the text formatting problem. We introduce a form of ranges with internal iteration, which are generating their elements one by one rather than exposing external iterators. We can use these generator ranges to represent the values to be formatted, conceptually turning them into lazily evaluated strings. These can be used just like regular strings are used today: in function returns; as standard algorithm input; embedded into other, equally lazily evaluated strings; and so on, before they are finally expanded for display.

Dr. Arno Schödl (Think-Cell) is the Co-Founder and Technical Director of think-cell Software GmbH. Arno is responsible for the design, architecture and development of all our software products. He oversees think-cell's R&D team, Quality Assurance and Customer Care. Before founding think-cell, Arno worked at Microsoft Research and McKinsey & Company. Arno studied computer science and management and holds a Ph.D. from the Georgia Institute of Technology with a specialization on Computer Graphics.

Let’s make easy to use libraries -- Martin Knoblauch

By jdgarcia | May 19, 2019 07:49 AM | Tags: None

Some sessions from the recent using std::cpp are now online.

Let’s make easy to use libraries

by Martin Knoblauch

About the session

We often use libraries with annoying, error prone interfaces. The main cause is the potential incompatibility between the library and the program using it, due to being compiled with different compiler versions or settings. Another well known issue is the usage of separated heaps by the program and the library in Windows. These problems can be solved (at a very high cost!) by using pure C interfaces and/or the Hourglass Pattern. In this talk I propose designing interfaces using a selected set of C++ features that should be very unlikely to cause ABI incompatibilities. I will focus on the usage of std::unique_ptr with custom deleters to manage the lifetime of objects passed through the library interface, thus making life easier for both the library implementor and the library user. Needless to say, a full Hourglass Pattern interface can also benefit from using std::unique_ptr.

Martin Knoblauch (Indizen). Fiddling with computers since the mid 80's, passionate about C++ since the 90's, C and C++ lecturer in the 00's. At Indizen since 2014. Member of the Spanish C++ Standards Committee.

Trip report from using std::cpp 2019 in Madrid -- Daniel Garcia

By jdgarcia | May 16, 2019 12:02 PM | Tags: None

On March, 7th, we had the sixth edition of using std::cpp (the C++ conference in Spain). The conference was again a on-day free event, and as every other year it was hosted at the Higher Polytechnic School of University Carlos III of Madrid in Leganés.

Trip report from using std::cpp 2019 in Madrid

by Daniel Garcia

About the article

As many other years roughly 200 participants attended the conference. Most of the attendees were coming from industry.

This trip report contains some statistics from the evaluation forms at the conference including standards adoption and compilers usage.