Articles & Books

Meeting C++ 2016: closing keynote & full schedule

With the announcement of the closing keynote the full schedule for Meeting C++ 2016 stands!

Closing keynote & full schedule of Meeting C++ 2016

by Jens Weller

From the article:

Since mid of June the program of the 5th Meeting C++ conference was taking shape. With the selection of the talks it was also clear in which tracks they go, so that the schedule it self was almost ready, except a last detail: the closing keynote.

The closing keynote will be held by Louis Dionne on "C++ metaprogramming: evolution and future directions".

Red Hat at the ISO C++ Standards Meeting (June 2016, Oulu): Library--JWAKELY

C++ continues to evolve:

Red Hat at the ISO C++ Standards Meeting (June 2016, Oulu): Library

by JWAKELY

From the article:

The recent WG21 meeting in Oulu, Finland, was an especially busy one for the Library Working Group. Every day was spent working through the list of proposals intended for inclusion in C++17, and we also had three “evening” sessions that ran well past the evening (until nearly midnight, although the sun was still up to trick us into working late)...

 

Red Hat at the ISO C++ Standards Meeting (June 2016, Oulu): Core Language--Jason Merrill

C++ continues to evolve:

Red Hat at the ISO C++ Standards Meeting (June 2016, Oulu): Core Language

by Jason Merrill

From the article:

It was quite a trek to get to Oulu, Finland for the June 2016 C++ Standards Committee meeting, but we were warmly received and the meeting went well once we arrived. We had very pleasant weather most of the week, and it was fun to experience the midnight sun, even though it played havoc with my sleep schedule.

Red Hat at the ISO C++ Standards Meeting (June 2016, Oulu): Parallelism and Concurrency--Torvald Rie

C++ continues to evolve:

Red Hat at the ISO C++ Standards Meeting (June 2016, Oulu): Parallelism and Concurrency

by Torvald Riegel

From the article:

Several Red Hat engineers recently attended the JTC1/SC22/WG21 C++ Standards Committee meetings in Oulu, Finland.  This post focuses on the sessions of SG1 (the standards committee sub-group 1 – for concurrency and parallelism) as well as on coroutines-related sessions. Jason already gave an overview of the meeting in his post.

Quick Q: How to express constness of a forwarding reference?

Quick A: To express constness, a const reference is what is needed.

Recently on SO:

How to express constness of a forwarding reference?

How can I express that f does not modify its parameter?

If the function doesn't modify its parameter then there is no benefit to using a forwarding reference. You use a forwarding reference when you want to forward the parameter on to some other function which cares whether the argument is an lvalue or an rvalue (because maybe there are separate overloads for lvalues and rvalues, and the rvalue one can be more efficient).

If your function doesn't modify the argument then it shouldn't need to care whether it has an lvalue or rvalue, so it can just take const T& unconditionally. That can bind to both lvalues and rvalues, and promises not to modify the parameter.

template<typename T>
void f(const T& t) { ... }

An interview with Sean Parent

I had the opportunity to interview Sean Parent!

An Interview with Sean Parent

by Jens Weller

From the Interview:

Lets start with the Introduction, who is Sean Parent?

Introducing yourself is always the toughest question. I’ve been a software developer for nearly 30 years and I’ve been fortunate enough to work on some great products and with some great people. I started my career at a small company, Orange Micro, where I wrote a print spooler for Mac (before MultiFinder) and “hijacked” Apple’s ImageWriter printer drivers to work with a wide variety of printers. I worked at Apple in the QuickDraw GX printing group (GX didn’t survive but lives on in spirit in Skia) and I worked on the PowerMac team that did the transition from 68K processors to PowerPC. I joined the Photoshop team at Adobe during the development of Photoshop 3.0, and managed Adobe’s Software Technology Lab for many years. I worked briefly at Google on the ChromeOS project, and then returned to Adobe where I’ve been working on mobile and web digital imaging products since.

What is your role as a principal scientist at adobe?

The role of a principal scientist in general is to act as a multiplier. I act as a consultant for individuals and groups, I work on various products and projects where I perceive a need. I helped to bring the rendering technology from Lightroom and the Photoshop Camera Raw plugin to mobile, first for the Revel product (a now defunct Lightroom like product for non-professionals) and then for Lightroom Mobile. I also brought the engine up inside the browser which is now part of Lightroom Web.

New Book “C++ Standard Library Quick Reference” Now Available

Marc Gregoire’s and Peter Van Weert’s brand new book “C++ Standard Library Quick Reference”, published by Apress is now available:

C++ Standard Library Quick Reference (Apress) 
C++ Standard Library Quick Reference (Amazon)

By Marc Gregoire and Peter Can Weert

From the abstract:

This quick reference is a condensed reference guide to the essential data structures, algorithms, and functions provided by the C++ Standard Library. Used by millions of C++ programmers on a daily basis, the C++ Standard Library features core classes for strings, I/O streams, and various generic containers, as well as a comprehensive set of algorithms to manipulate them. In recent years, the C++11 and C++14 standards have added even more efficient container classes, a new powerful regular expression library, and a portable multithreading library featuring threads, mutexes, condition variables, and atomic variables.

Needless to say, it is hard to know and remember all the possibilities, details, and intricacies of this vast and growing library. This handy reference guide is therefore indispensable to any C++ programmer. It offers a condensed, well-structured summary of all essential aspects of the C++ Standard Library. No page-long, repetitive examples or obscure, rarely used features. Instead, everything you need to know and watch out for in practice is outlined in a compact, to-the-point style, interspersed with practical tips and well-chosen, clarifying examples. The book does not explain the C++ language or syntax, but is accessible to anyone with basic C++ knowledge or programming experience. Even the most experienced C++ programmer though will learn a thing or two from it and find it a useful memory-aid. Among the topics covered are:

  • The essentials that the C++ Standard Library has to offer
  • How to use containers to efficiently store and retrieve your data
  • How to use algorithms to inspect and manipulate your data
  • How lambda expressions allow for elegant use of algorithms
  • What the standard string class provides and how to use it
  • How to write localized applications
  • What functionality the library provides for file and stream-based I/O
  • What smart pointers are and how to use them to prevent memory leaks
  • How to write safe and efficient multi-threaded code using the C++11 threading libraries