Articles & Books

Swapping the Contents of n Variables -- Paul Keir

Swapping arguments using a fold expression.

Swapping the Contents of n Variables

by Paul Keir

From the article:

C++11's std::swap is a binary function template which exchanges the contents of its two reference arguments. In C++20 std::swap will likely also permit execution at compile-time. In this post we consider a version which can swap the contents of an arbitrary number of arguments using a C++17 fold-expression...

 

Developer Ecosystem 2019 survey by JetBrains

In JetBrains we feel it is important to keep monitoring the changing patterns and trends going on in the Software Development industry. That's why we run this survey yearly, trying to better understand the evolving world of development.

Developer Ecosystem 2019 Survey by JetBrains

by Anastasia Kazakova

About the survey:

In 2017, when we first started, the numbers of C/C++ developers in the survey were quite low:

  • total number of C developers in the survey is 1174, number of developers who use C as a primary dev language is 166
  • total number of C++ developers in the survey is 1713, number of developers who use C++ as a primary dev language is 348

A year after we got more impressive numbers:

  • total number of C developers in the survey is 3371, number of developers who use C as a primary dev language is 1254
  • total number of C++ developers in the survey is 4763, number of developers who use C++ as a primary dev language is 2036

We've learned a lot about language standard usage, compilers, build systems, unit testing frameworks, and other important aspects of C/C++ development from these surveys. Help us make it again this year!

Functional Programming Is Not a Silver Bullet--Jonathan Boccara

Nothing is perfect.

Functional Programming Is Not a Silver Bullet

by Jonathan Boccara

From the article:

The past few years have seen a boost in popularity of the functional programming paradigm. Languages that were used mostly in academic circles for decades are now in broader use amongst programmers. And every couple of months, another functional language hits the news and gets its trail of followers.

Why is that? Functional programming allow for safer and more robust code, in part due to one of its core principles: values are not mutable. A consequence of this is that there is no side effects. We can apply this principle in any language, including in C++, by coding with the least side effects possible.

While it certainly helps putting together a better design of code, it’s important to realize that it’s not the panacea, that this principle doesn’t solve in itself all design issues. Nothing is the panacea anyway, but in this time of gold rush towards functional programming, we could be tricked into thinking it will automatically lead to good design.

Functional programming is known to reduce coupling in code. We’ll briefly go over what coupling is, what sort of coupling functional programming prevents, and how some other dangerous forms of coupling can still sneak in even with functional programming. You want to pay attention to those to preserve the design of your code...

Getting You There - Your C++ Standardization Efforts in 2019--JeanHeyd Meneide

You can also do it!

Getting You There - Your C++ Standardization Efforts in 2019

by JeanHeyd Meneide

From the article:

If you’re facing Financial Hardship, are a student, are self-employed, and have written a proposal that the chairs of the C++ Standardization Groups (Library Evolution, Evolution, Core, Library, Parallelism/Concurrency, and similar study groups) deem necessary to help move the language forward (in large or small ways), you can apply for Grant Assistance from the C++ Standards Foundation. If you have an employer but that employer will not cover the full cost, you have papers to present (yours or on behalf of others) and similar, you can apply for Travel Assistance.

I will talk about Travel Assistance, because that is what I have applied for and successfully received. A huge thanks to the Standard C++ Foundation for making something like this available! I can only hope that my work will continue to be things that they need, and that I can continue to write papers and do work on behalf of the C++ Community to move our various industries forward...

REPL (Read-Eval-Print-Loop) in C++: hands-on session--Pascal Thomet

New way to program?

REPL (Read-Eval-Print-Loop) in C++: hands-on session

by Pascal Thomet

From the article:

A Read-Eval-Print-Loop (REPL) enables to leverage very rapid and robust application development, prototyping and testing. This kind of development environment originates from the early days of functional programming (Lisp machines and the like), and is common in functional and scripting languages.

As a compiled language, C++ was out of the loop for a long time...

A Simple Timer in C++--Jonathan Boccara

Simple indeed.

A Simple Timer in C++

by Jonathan Boccara

From the article:

Some languages, such as JavaScript or Visual Basic, offer the feature of a timer, that is to say an object that calls some code at defined intervals. At the time of this writing (C++17) and to my knowledge, C++ doesn’t offer such a feature...

What is an Allocator?--Vanand Gasparyan

Basic, but complex.

What is an Allocator?

by Vanand Gasparyan

From the article:

This is one of the many beautiful questions you can think on or be asked at interviews if your native coding language is C++. The beautiful thing about this question is that you answer it again and again as you grow and gain more experience. Similarly, when you’re being interviewed for an internship, knowing that there is such a thing somewhere in STL might be enough, whereas later you’ll be expected to write your own custom allocator...

C++, C# and Unity

The place C++ will have at Unity:

C++, C# and Unity

by Lucas Meijer

From the article:

C++ is not great at this task. I want my loop to be vectorized, but a million things can happen that might make the compiler not vectorize it. It might be vectorized today, but not tomorrow if a new seemingly innocent change happens. Just convincing all my C/C++ compilers to vectorize my code at all is hard.

Ranges, Code Quality, and the Future of C++--Jason Meisel

Very intersting comment about ranges.

Ranges, Code Quality, and the Future of C++

by Jason Meisel

From the article:

Many of you have seen the recent blog post by Eric Niebler about the acceptance of his C++ Ranges proposal to the C++2a standard. This is a feature set I’ve wanted in C++ for some time. In fact, using C#’s standard LINQ library, I’ve become accustomed to writing code in this style.

I found it unfortunate, then, to see people respond to this post on Reddit and Twitter by complaining that this feature makes code unreadable. Apparently, C++ is becoming more complex and less useful.

I think this is completely untrue. C++2a is going to be the best version of C++ yet, and a big reason for that is Eric’s Ranges library.

But even to me, his Pythagorean Triples example is bad code. This is not because this range library makes code harder to read, but because he utilizes the library very poorly...