Registration is now open for CppCon 2023! The conference starts on October 1 and will be held in person in Aurora, CO. To whet your appetite for this year’s conference, we’re posting videos of some of the top-rated talks from last year's conference. Here’s another CppCon talk video we hope you will enjoy – and why not register today for CppCon 2023!

Using Modern C++ to Eliminate Virtual Functions

by Jonathan Gopel

Summary of the talk:

As of C++20, there are no cases in which statically linked programs require virtual functions. This talk will explore techniques for replacing runtime polymorphism with compile-time polymorphism such that virtual functions are never necessary. This talk will also address the higher-order concern of when it might make sense to avoid virtual functions or remove them from a codebase, as that decision ultimately is a design decision that only the author of the code can make. Attendees can expect to come away with a stronger understanding of the purposes of virtual functions and the mechanisms in modern C++ that can now be used to achieve those same purposes.