Introduction to Modern C++ -- Olve Maudal

By Blog Staff | Oct 30, 2014 10:28 AM | Tags: None

A few days ago in Norway, well-known C++ expert Olve Maudal presented the following slides. We hope you enjoy them too.

Introduction to Modern C++ (PDF)

by Olve Maudal

From the presentation:

C++ has evolved a lot since it was first introduced as "C with classes" with primitive support for object-oriented programming. In particular during the last 10-15 years the common use of the language has changed "dramatically" and the language itself has evolved accordingly. Modern C++ (C++11/14) is still very suitable for object-oriented programming, but now the language also provides good support for generic programming and functional programming. All of this while C++ is still a low-level language that can be used to create programs that compete with programs written in assembler both in terms of speed and size.

We start with a brief history of C++ before focusing on new features in C++11/14 and a demonstration of some typical modern programming techniques.

Stroustrup highlights next C++ goals: Parallelism, concurrency -- Paul Krill

By Blog Staff | Oct 30, 2014 10:12 AM | Tags: None

Today in Infoworld, perhaps the first article about C++17:

Stroustrup highlights next C++ goals: Parallelism, concurrency

Language founder Bjarne Stroustrup gives early indicators of what to expect in C++17

by Paul Krill

Note: C++14 is just being published and C++17 may sound far away. But it's not -- some compilers, such as Clang 3.5 and Visual C++ "14" CTP, already go beyond C++14 and support draft-C++17 features like the new for(e:v) syntax.

From the article:

... Other major proposals for C++17 include faster compilation (championed mostly by Apple, Google, and Microsoft), contracts, and better type-checking. A meeting about the future of C++ is to be held by the standards committee at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champa[ign], next week, Stroustrup says.

Second Edition of "The Boost C++ Libraries" Now in Print and Online

By Jon Kalb | Oct 29, 2014 02:34 AM | Tags: None

The second edition of Boris Schäling's "The Boost C++ Libraries" is now available in print form and (free) online. The print edition is available at Amazon and the online version is here. 

This edition covers 72 Boost libraries, almost twice as many as the previous edition and uses 430 complete, but as short as possible code examples.

For Boost libraries that were incorporated into the C++11 standard library, differences between Boost and the standard library are highlighted.

The goal of this book is to increase your efficiency as a C++ developer and to simplify software development with C++. The Boost libraries introduced in this book will help you write less code with fewer bugs and finish projects faster. Your code will be more concise and self-explanatory and more easily adapted when requirements change.

Template Metaprogramming with Modern C++: Templates in Depth -- Manu Sánchez

By Jordi Mon Companys | Oct 28, 2014 09:24 AM | Tags: None

Recently on biicode:

Template Metaprogramming with Modern C++: Templates in Depth

by Manu Sánchez

From the article:

The last time  we learnt what metaprogramming was, how metaprogramming in C++ via templates works, and the functional spirit of the embedded language that C++ template metaprogramming is. In this post we will learn C++ templates in depth: Class and function templates, template parameters, variadic templates, all with in depth examples. ...

 

... Then the fact that the compiler only generates code which actually does something (All syntactic sugar that high-level constructs provide is thrown away):

int main()
{
    return Fibonacci<5>::value;
}

GCC 4.9 -std=c++11 -O0 x86 target:

main:                                   # @main
	movl	$55, 

Variadic Templates in C++ -- Eli Bendersky

By Blog Staff | Oct 28, 2014 01:43 AM | Tags: None

A nice tutorial on a feature that leads to convenient and safe calling code:

Variadic Templates in C++

by Eli Bendersky

From the article:

Prior to C++11, the only way to write functions that take an arbitrary number of arguments was to use variadic functions like printf, with the ellipsis syntax (...) and the accompanying va_ family of macros. If you've ever written code using this approach you know how cumbersome it is. In addition to being type unsafe (all type resolution has to be done explicitly with casts in va_arg, at runtime), it's also tricky to get right. The va_ macros perform low-level memory manipulation, and I've seen a lot of code that segfaults because it isn't using them carefully enough.

But what always bothered me most with this approach is leaving something that is clearly known at compile-time, to run-time. Yes, when we write a variadic function we don't know all the ways it's going to be used. But when the compiler puts the whole program together, it does know. It sees perfectly well all the invocations of the function throughout the program, and all the possible argument types it gets passed (types are, after all, resolved at compile-time in C++).

Variadic templates

One of the new features of C++11 is variadic templates. Finally, there's a way to write functions that take an arbitrary number of arguments in a type-safe way and have all the argument handling logic resolved at compile-time, rather than run-time. Variadic templates can be used for much more than just functions that take an arbitrary number of arguments; in this article I want to demonstrate some of these capabilities...

C++11: Let's Write a "Hello, Lambda!" -- Ovidiu Cucu

By Blog Staff | Oct 27, 2014 10:35 AM | Tags: None

Fresh on codexpert:

C++11: Let's Write a "Hello, Lambda!"

by Ovidiu Cucu

From the article:

... Getting rid of optional parts, we can make our program simpler, as follows:

// Example #2

#include <iostream>

int main()
{
    [] { std::cout << "Hello Lambda!"; } ();
}

Further, let’s take a little deeper look in the lambda introducer part...

A different listing for the C++ Proposals

By Meeting C++ | Oct 27, 2014 07:01 AM | Tags: standardization experimental

Two news in one: I used an old project on the weekend to have an alternative listing for the C++ Proposals:

An alternative listing for the C++ Proposals

This years C++ Proposals listed by mailing and subgroup

by Jens Weller

Urbana Proposals - C++17 insight?

By Meeting C++ | Oct 25, 2014 01:59 AM | Tags: intermediate experimental c++17 c++ committee basics advanced

I've started with my series on the proposals for the next C++ Committee Meeting:

Urbana Proposals - C++17 insight?

by Jens Weller

From the article:

A short series to give you an overview over the Papers submitted in the latest mailing for the C++ Committee Meeting in Urbana-Champaign in Illinois. At the beginning of November the C++ Committee will have its 3rd Meeting this year. As C++14 is now finished, the focus is clearly on the upcoming C++17 standard.

From the archives: "C++: as close as possible to C -- but no closer" -- A. Koenig and B. Stroustrup

By Blog Staff | Oct 24, 2014 01:00 AM | Tags: None

For your Friday reading pleasure, we recently came across one of the very earliest C++ standardization papers written, with number N0007 (or call it "007"):

C++: as close as possible to C -- but no closer

by Andrew Koenig and Bjarne Stroustrup

It's interesting too see how much C++ has stayed true to its root design. And the thesis and contents of this paper are both remarkably current, and to be considered by those who would attempt to C-ify C++, or C++-ify C.

From the paper:

ANSI C and the C subset of C++ serve subtly different purposes. ...

The purpose of this note is to summarize the remaining differences between the draft ANSI C standard and C++, explain their motivation, and point out cases where these differences are less important than they might appear at first.

Writing min function, part 4: Const-Correctness -- Fernando Pelliccioni

By Fernando Pelliccioni | Oct 22, 2014 10:30 AM | Tags: None

Writing min function, part 4: Const-Correctness

by Fernando Pelliccioni

From the Article:

This is the fourth article of the series called “Writing min function”.

I still have to solve two mistakes made in the code of the previous posts. One of them is C++ specific, and the other it is a mistake that could be made in any programming language.