Registration is now open for CppCon 2024! The conference starts on September 15 and will be held in person in Aurora, CO. To whet your appetite for this year’s conference, we’re posting some upcoming talks that you will be able to attend this year. Here’s another CppCon future talk we hope you will enjoy – and register today for CppCon 2024!

Template-less Meta-programming

Friday, September 20 09:00 - 10:00 MDT

by Kris Jusiak

Summary of the talk:

Meta-programming is one of the most significant C++ superpowers. It enables seemingly impossible feats, but there is a considerable cost associated with it as well. Therefore, its applications have been limited to experts and cases where the benefits greatly outweigh the maintenance burden.

But what if that doesn't have to be the case? In this talk, we will explore an alternative approach to template meta-programming that does not require an understanding of the traditional 'angle bracket' technique.

We will also make the case that anyone who can write C++ can become a meta-programming guru! But what about compilation times and/or testing/debugging, you may ask? Well, we will cover those as well, and it might be surprising what modern C++ is actually capable of!

Additionally, we will cover how the static reflection proposal and C++20 ranges can further improve the ability to write meta-functions and how C++ compares to other languages such as circle. However, we will also show how to apply the technique with C++17 on all major compilers with a ready-to-go solution.

Finally, we will benchmark compilation times of different approaches, showcasing their strengths and weaknesses.

If you are interested in meta-programming or have always wanted to understand its practical use cases but never really grasped them, this talk is for you!

Kris is a passionate Software Engineer with experience across various industries, including telecommunications, gaming, and most recently, finance. He specializes in modern C++ development, with a keen focus on performance and quality. Kris is also an active conference speaker and open-source enthusiast, having created multiple open-source libraries.