CppCon 2014 C++11 in the Wild: Techniques from a Real Codebase--Arthur O'Dwyer

By Adrien Hamelin | Feb 25, 2015 08:00 AM | Tags: intermediate c++11

While we wait for CppCon 2015 in September, we’re featuring videos of some of the 100+ talks from CppCon 2014. Here is today’s feature:

C++11 in the Wild: Techniques from a Real Codebase

by Arthur O'Dwyer

(watch on YouTube) (watch on Channel 9)

Summary of the talk:

This talk presents several reusable constructs from a production C++11 codebase, each of which would not be possible without C++11's new features. Auto() is what Alexandrescu's ScopeGuard looks like after a dozen years of C++ evolution. make_iterable() constructs a container from a pair of iterators, enabling simple "foreach" iteration over legacy containers. spaceship() is an efficient "strcmp" for tuples. Time permitting, we'll look at some more arcane code samples.

Type Deduction and Braced Initializers--Arne Mertz

By Adrien Hamelin | Feb 23, 2015 02:39 PM | Tags: c++11 basics

If you are confused about the topic, read this article:

Type Deduction and Braced Initializers

by Arne Mertz

From the article:

I just finished watching a talk from CppCon 2014 by Scott Meyers: Type Deduction and Why You Care. All in all it was a very interesting and entertaining talk, and I learned a thing or two, especially about the combination of type deduction and braced initializers. Since this blog is about simplifying the use of C++, I want to have a short look at that special combination and derive a rule of thumb from it...

Non Static Data Members Initialization--Bartlomiej Filipek

By Adrien Hamelin | Feb 23, 2015 02:32 PM | Tags: c++11 basics

Here is a useful thing to know that appeared with C++11:

Non Static Data Members Initialization

by Bartlomiej Filipek

From the article:

My short summary for non static data members initialization from modern C++. A very useful feature. Should we use it or not?

CppCon 2014 Using C++ on Mission and Safety Critical Platforms--Bill Emshoff

By Adrien Hamelin | Feb 23, 2015 08:00 AM | Tags: advanced

While we wait for CppCon 2015 in September, we’re featuring videos of some of the 100+ talks from CppCon 2014. Here is today’s feature:

Using C++ on Mission and Safety Critical Platforms

by Bill Emshoff

(watch on YouTube) (watch on Channel 9)

Summary of the talk:

The Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) is the first major DOD aircraft program to use C++. Much of this software is either safety critical or mission critical and so must be written in such a way as to be clear, readable, unambiguous, testable, and maintainable. We discuss the driving requirements behind the standard and its evolution. We give a quick overview of our standard and discuss how it differs from later standards such as MISRA C++. We discuss lessons learned over our nine year history of applying the standard to a large embedded software program. We also address ambiguities in rules and difficulties with automated checking of conformance with the standard.

Video Tutorial: Handle-based entity management -- Vittorio Romeo

By Vittorio Romeo | Feb 23, 2015 06:35 AM | Tags: intermediate c++11

Almost every C++ application and game deals with entity management.

Video Tutorial -- Handle-based entity management

By Vittorio Romeo

From the tutorial:

Entities are usually self-contained objects that...

• ...store data and/or logic.
• ...are tied a specific concept (e.g. an UI widget, or a 3D model).
• ...we need to keep track of.
• ...can either be alive or dead.
• ...are extremely often used in groups.

Problem: we need to keep track of specific entity instances, and iterate on every instance. We also need to remove dead entities and add new entities.

Keeping track of specific instances is easily solved with pointers and smart pointers.
Fast-iteration of a group of objects with the same type is achieved with cache-friendly memory locality and no indirection.
Adding and removing entities stored in a cache-friendly manner invalidates existing pointers.

How can we facilitate instance tracking/addition/removal and still allow fast iteration?

In this video, we will create a generic container that stores objects in a cache-friendly way, allows to keep track of specific object instances and also allows addition and removal of entities. 
 

John Lakos interviews Alexander Stepanov and Daniel Rose on their new Book

By Mantosh Kumar | Feb 21, 2015 10:38 PM | Tags: None

Published on InformIT in which John Lakos interviews Alexander Stepanov and Daniel Rose about various aspects of generic programming and modern C++.

From Mathematics to Generic Programming: An Interview with Alexander Stepanov and Daniel Rose

 

John Lakos interviews Alexander Stepanov and Daniel Rose, authors of From Mathematics to Generic Programming, on their new book, why it applies to everyday programmers, and their positions on some closely related technical issues — including value semantics, concepts, contracts, and polymorphic memory resources — facing the C++ Standards Committee today.

Fighting off memory leaks and errors (C++11) -- Kacper Kołodziej

By Mantosh Kumar | Feb 21, 2015 09:09 PM | Tags: None

This article talks about how modern C++ idioms could be used to avoid memory leak and errors.

Fighting off memory leaks and errors (C++11)

by Kacper Kolodziej

From the article:

Modern tools provided with C++11's standard library make fight with memory leaks and errors easier and more effective. Sometimes problems which are seemingly not dangerous might put an end to your application. We are going to learn how to find and avoid them.

Counting bits -- Jens Weller

By Mantosh Kumar | Feb 21, 2015 07:56 PM | Tags: None

How to generate random bytes and how generic programming allow/support reuse code for different types.

   Counting bits

   by Jens Weller

From the article:

I did a bit of fun coding. I'm currently thinking on how to generate random bytes, for example the 16 random bytes for the initialization vector of AES. The mersenne twister RNG is known to give very good randomness, so it would be a possible an easy source. An std::array<uint32_t,4> would be a good container, filled with generate. But first, I wanted to know, how random is the mersenne twister really? So, when counting the bits in the result of a few thousand calls to a rng, the distribution should be even. So, today I wrote code that counts bits, and tested it on the mersenne twister.

Boost libraries are now supported in biicode

By Jordi Mon Companys | Feb 21, 2015 05:54 AM | Tags: efficiency dependency management community boost basics

First step to a complete integration of the C++ deps manager biicode with the most popular set of C++ libs: Boost libraries.

Boost libraries are now supported in biicode

by Manu Sánchez

From the news:

At biicode we have been working hard to simplify the process of making Boost available for any C++ programmer with just an include. But this is only the start, the project has been released as open source to allow everyone contribute and help.

CppCon 2014 Make Simple Tasks Simple!--Bjarne Stroustrup

By Adrien Hamelin | Feb 20, 2015 08:00 AM | Tags: c++14 c++11 basics

While we wait for CppCon 2015 in September, we’re featuring videos of some of the 100+ talks from CppCon 2014. Here is today’s feature:

Elevate Your Code to Modern C++11 with Automated Tooling

by Bjarne Stroustrup

(watch on YouTube) (watch on Channel 9)

Summary of the talk:

C++ faces two challenges: Helping programmers address the most demanding tasks in terms of performance, scale, and dependability. It must also help programmers be productive writing ordinary maintainable code. There is much more "ordinary code" than there is performance-critical code. Thus, C++ must make simple tasks simple while not getting in the way of tuning software for the last byte and last cycle where that's necessary. This talk focuses on what C++11 and C++14 offers to simplify programming: auto, range-for loops, move semantics, futures, concepts, and more. However, the focus is not primarily on language features: the key is programming: how can we write better, more readable, efficient, and more maintainable code? If you think that the essence of C++ is clever pointer manipulation and huge class hierarchies you may be in for a few surprises.