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Bjarne Stroustrup segment from 2013 ACM-ICPC World Championships

By Blog Staff | Aug 7, 2013 07:08 AM | Tags: None

stroustrup-icpc13.PNGicpc-2013.pngBjarne Stroustrup spoke at this summer's ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest World Finals held in St. Petersburg, Russia. While there, he also gave this 8-minute interview in the context of balancing efficient code with the out-of-the-box problem solving required by ICPC problem challenges.

2013 ICPC Bjarne Stroustrup

C++ inventor Bjarne Stroustrup discusses the relationship of programming languages and competition and the benefit of participating in events such as the ACM-ICPC.

 

New paper: N3707, 2014-02 Meeting Invitation and Information -- Herb Sutter

By Blog Staff | Aug 6, 2013 08:56 AM | Tags: None

A new WG21 paper is available. A copy is linked below, and the paper will also appear in the next normal WG21 mailing. If you are not a committee member, please use the comments section below or the std-proposals forum for public discussion.

Document number: N3707

Date: 2013-08-06

2014-02 Meeting Invitation and Information

by Herb Sutter

Excerpt:

The winter 2014 meeting of WG21 is being hosted by Microsoft and will be held on February 10-15, 2014 at Hilton Garden Inn, 1800 NW Gilman Blvd., Issaquah, Washington, USA 98027

Quick Q: Why do I have to write 'mutable' on a lambda? -- StackOverflow

By Blog Staff | Aug 5, 2013 11:04 AM | Tags: intermediate

Inquiring minds want to know:

Why does C++0x's lambda require “mutable” keyword for capture-by-value, by default?

Short example:

#include <iostream>

int main()
{
    int n;
    [&](){n = 10;}();             // OK
    [=]() mutable {n = 20;}();    // OK
    // [=](){n = 10;}();          // Error: a by-value capture cannot be modified in a non-mutable lambda
    std::cout << n << "\n";       // "10"
}

The question: Why do we need the mutable keyword? It's quite different from traditional parameter passing to named functions. What's the rationale behind?

I was under the impression that the whole point of capture-by-value is to allow the user to change the temporary -- otherwise I'm almost always better off using capture-by-reference, aren't I?

Any enlightenments?

(I'm using MSVC2010 by the way. AFAIK this should be standard)

Quick Q: Where do I have to write 'template' and 'typename'? -- StackOverflow

By Blog Staff | Aug 4, 2013 09:19 PM | Tags: intermediate

This question is an oldie but goodie. Note that in C++11 some of this becomes clearer, because it's now recommended to use constexpr and using template aliases instead of "traits" styles, and traits are one of the bigger (but not only) reasons to have a template refer to another template.

Where and why do I have to put the “template” and “typename” keywords?

In templates, where and why do I have to put typename and template on dependent names? What exactly are dependent names anyway? I have the following code: ...

Why Would You Ever Pass a Container By Value? -- Andrew Koenig

By Blog Staff | Jul 31, 2013 03:54 PM | Tags: basics

From the desk of ARK:

Why Would You Ever Pass a Container By Value?

by Andrew Koenig

From the article:

Consider two fundamental features of C++: functions and references. Which shall we teach first?

If we teach references first, there is the problem of coming up with interesting example programs that use references but completely avoid user-defined functions. This is hard to do because the most common use of references is as function parameters — so it's probably easier to teach functions first.

However, if we teach functions before we teach references, then every function we write must accept its arguments by value — references not yet being available as an alternative...

HPX version 0.9.6 released -- Stellar Group, LSU

By Blog Staff | Jul 31, 2013 03:03 PM | Tags: None

stellar-group.PNGThe Stellar Group at Louisiana State University has released version 0.9.6 of High Performance Parallex (HPX) for Linux, MacOS, Windows, and Android.

HPX V0.9.6 Released

The STE||AR Group is proud to announce the sixth formal release of HPX (V0.9.6). ...

From the announcement:

In this release we have made several significant changes:

  • Consolidated API to be aligned with the C++11 (and the future C++14) Standard
  • Implemented a distributed version of our Active Global Address Space (AGAS)
  • Ported HPX to the Xeon-Phi device
  • Added support for the SLURM scheduling system
  • Improved the performance counter framework
  • Added a distributed version of the Active Global Address Space (AGAS)
  • Added parcel (message) compression and parcel coalescing systems
  • Allow different scheduling polices for different parts of code with experimental executors API
  • Added experimental security support on the locality level
  • Created a native transport layer on top of Infiniband networks
  • Created a native transport layer on top of low level MPI functions
  • Added an experimental tuple-space object

Contextually Converted to Bool -- Chris Sharpe

By Blog Staff | Jul 31, 2013 09:03 AM | Tags: intermediate

A nice writeup of when this "it just works the way you expect" feature kicks in:

Contextually converted to bool

by Chris Sharpe

From the article:

Something I found mildly surprising about C++11 is that this works:

#include <iostream>

struct Testable
{
    explicit operator bool() const { return true; }
};

int main()
{
    Testable t;
    if (t)
        std::cout << "Converted to true!\n";
}

That is, it compiles and prints Converted to true!.

The new bit here is the explicit keyword. When I first saw an example like this, I expected to have to write

if (bool( t )) // ...

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