August 2021

CppCon 2020 Back to Basics: Exceptions--Klaus Iglberger

Registration is now open for CppCon 2021, which starts on October 24 and will be held both in person and online. To whet your appetite for this year’s conference, we’re posting videos of some of the top-rated talks from our most recent in-person conference in 2019 and our online conference in 2020. Here’s another CppCon talk video we hope you will enjoy – and why not register today for CppCon 2021 to attend in person, online, or both!

Back to Basics: Exceptions

by Klaus Iglberger

Summary of the talk:

Exceptions are the native error propagation mechanism in C++. If used properly, exceptions enable us to write simpler, more readable and more robust code. However, the path there can be tricky and unfortunately the exception mechanism isn't without flaws. This talk sheds somelight on the current issues with exceptions and why a large part of the C++ community isn't using them. It also gives guidelines and best practices on how to deal with exceptions and how touse them properly. It will go into detail about the exception safety guarantees, explains the tradeoffs between them, and demonstrates by example the individual steps necessary to reach them.

C++20 modules with GCC11--Niall Cooling

Will you start using them?

C++20 modules with GCC11

by Niall Cooling

From the article:

One of the headline changes of the C++20 standard is the inclusion of modules. Modules promise to significantly change the structure of C++ codebases and possibly signal headers’ ultimate demise (but probably not in my lifetime). It also opens the door to potentially have a unified build system and package manager, similar to Rust’s Cargo package manager; though I imaging standardising a unified build system would be one bloody battle.

Embrace Your Problem Domain With Strong Types! -- Richard Thomson

Utah C++ Programmers has released a new video.

Embrace Your Problem Domain With Strong Types!

by Richard Thomson

From the video description:

Every piece of software we write fits into some sort of specific problem domain. Programming isn't about writing programs! Programming is about solving problems. [...]

One area that is often overlooked when modeling our problem domain is coming up with abstractions for the most common and simple values used in our programs. "We need to store a telephone number for the customers in our inventory system." "OK, let's use a std::string, that ought to do it."

That's certainly an expedient solution, but is it a good solution? [...]

This month, Richard Thomson will give us a guided tour on how we can write domain specific types in C++. We'll take a look at facilities provided directly by the language to roll our own types and we'll look at some library solutions that save us from writing lots of boiler plate.

ReSharper C++ 2021.2 brings type conversion hints, immutability inspections, ... -- Elvira Mustafina

ReSharper C++ 2021.2 is released!

ReSharper C++ 2021.2: Type Conversion Hints, Immutability Inspections, Inline Function

by Elvira Mustafina

From the article:

ReSharper C++ 2021.2 is now available for download! It brings new inlay hints to help you spot implicit type conversions, the Inline Function refactoring, and updates to Unreal Engine support. New modernizing inspections assist you with updating your code to modern C++, and improved immutability analyses keep your code more readable and correct.

  • New inlay hints that show implicit type conversions.
  • Inline Function refactoring.
  • Immutability inspections (and now Constants and immutability section of the C++ Core Guidelines is fully covered!).
  • More inspections to help you modernize your code.
  • Support for Unreal Engine 5 and other enhancements for game developers on UE.
  • cppreference.com links in the Quick Documentation pop-ups.
  • The bundled Clang-Tidy has been updated to Clang 12, adding new checks from the latest LLVM release.

CppCon 2019 A Critical Look at the Coding Standards Landscape--Michael Price

Registration is now open for CppCon 2021, which starts on October 24 and will be held both in person and online. To whet your appetite for this year’s conference, we’re posting videos of some of the top-rated talks from our most recent in-person conference in 2019 and our online conference in 2020. Here’s another CppCon talk video we hope you will enjoy – and why not register today for CppCon 2021 to attend in person, online, or both!

A Critical Look at the Coding Standards Landscape

by Michael Price

Summary of the talk:

The C and C++ programming languages are rife with spiky pits, hairpin curves, and loaded footguns, leading industries working with critical systems to embrace strict standards that aim to reduce the amount of damage that can be done with the awesome powers available to them when using these languages.

This session will briefly review what sorts of standards exist in the public today, leading into a serious critique of the more foolish and user-unfriendly aspects of these standards, and finally closing with an optimistic view of “the good parts” of the same.

Stricter Expression Evaluation Order in C++17--Bartlomiej Filipek

Do you know the rules?

Stricter Expression Evaluation Order in C++17

by Bartlomiej Filipek

From the article:

C++ has many dark corners and many caveats that can cause you to scratch your head in confusion. One of the issues we had until C++17 was the evaluation order of expressions. In this blog post, I’ll show you the new rules that we got in C++17 that made this complicated term much simpler and practical.

Here are the main points for today:

  • What’s the case with make_unique vs unique_ptr<T>(new T) in a function call.
  • What are the new rules for C++17?
  • Are all bugs fixed and now well defined?

Let’s go.

Bringing back the Meeting C++ employer listing

Relaunching another part of Meeting C++ recruiting: the employer listing.

Bringing back the Meeting C++ employer listing

by Jens Weller

From the article

Meeting C++ brings back the listing of C++ employers to its website as part of Meeting C++ recruiting. The companies will be visible in the listing it self, but also have their logos displayed in the job section next to every job advert posted to Meeting C++! Additionally, the companies are also listed in the CV/resume sharing form of Meeting C++.

PVS-Studio 7.14: CLion, intermodular analysis, MISRA

The PVS-Studio team is increasing the number of diagnostics with each new release. Besides, we are improving the analyzer's infrastructure. This time we added the plugin for JetBrains CLion. Moreover, we introduced intermodular analysis of C++ projects and speeded up the C# analyzer core.

PVS-Studio 7.14: intermodular analysis in C++ and plugin for JetBrains CLion

by Andrey Karpov

From the article:

As the list below shows, most of the diagnostics that we currently implement are based on the MISRA C standard. We focused on the MISRA C support, and now PVS-Studio covers 60% of the standard. Soon, we plan to cover at least 80%. We also want to introduce the support of coding standards from the MISRA C Compliance.

CppCon 2020 Dealing with Embedded Limitations--Panel Discussion hosted by Ben Saks

Registration is now open for CppCon 2021, which starts on October 24 and will be held both in person and online. To whet your appetite for this year’s conference, we’re posting videos of some of the top-rated talks from our most recent in-person conference in 2019 and our online conference in 2020. Here’s another CppCon talk video we hope you will enjoy – and why not register today for CppCon 2021 to attend in person, online, or both!

Dealing with Embedded Limitations

Panel Discussion hosted by Ben Saks

Summary of the talk:

Many embedded systems have requirements on latency, memory usage, and resource consumption. This is especially true of safety-critical and security-related systems. Many programmers and organizations worry that using C++ features will prevent them from meeting these requirements. Some avoid using specific features such as exception handling, while others avoid using C++ entirely.

This panel will discuss the challenges and benefits of using C++ in embedded contexts. We will explore ways that embedded systems can leverage the power of Modern C++ features to meet their guarantees. We will discuss which concerns are based in fact and which concerns are based on misconceptions.
Feel free to bring your own questions about anything that you believe inhibits your use of modern C++ on an embedded system. We will discuss pre-selected questions as well as audience submissions.