C++11 Style: A Touch of Class -- Bjarne Stroustrup

By Blog Staff | Aug 12, 2012 09:39 AM | Tags: None

Bjarne Stroustrup will be appearing live next month to deliver his popular talk on what "Modern C++" should mean in the 2010s.

C++11 Style: A Touch of Class
Bjarne Stroustrup

Date: September 19, 2012
Time: 6:30pm
Location: Austin, TX, USA 

We know how to write bad code: Litter our programs with casts, macros, pointers, naked new and deletes, and complicated control structures. Alternatively (or in addition), obscure every design decision in a mess of deeply nested abstractions using the latest object-oriented programming and generic programming tricks. For good measure, complicate our algorithms with interesting special cases. Such code is incomprehensible, unmaintainable, usually inefficient, and not uncommon.

But how do we write good code? What principles, techniques, and idioms can we exploit to make it easier to produce quality code? I will make an argument for type-rich interfaces, compact data structures, integrated resource management and error handling, and highly-structured algorithmic code. I will illustrate my ideas and motivate my guidelines with a few idiomatic code examples.

I will use C++11 freely. Examples include auto, general constant expressions, uniform initialization, type aliases, type safe threading, and user-defined literals. C++ features are only just starting to appear in production compilers, so some of my suggestions have the nature of conjecture. However, developing a “modern style” is essential if we don’t want to maintain newly-written 1970s and 1980s style code in 2020.

This presentation reflects my thoughts on what “Modern C++” should mean in the 2010s: a language for programming based on light-weight abstraction with a direct and efficient mapping to hardware, suitable for infrastructure code.

Core C++, 3 of N: Overload Resolution -- Stephan T. Lavavej

By Blog Staff | Jul 24, 2012 07:36 PM | Tags: intermediate advanced

Core C++, 3 of N: Overload Resolution -- Stephan T. Lavavej

Stephan T. Lavavej, aka STL, will take us on a journey of discovery within the exciting world of Core C++. We know lots of folks are either coming back to C++, coming to C++, or have never left C++. This lecture series, in n parts, is for all of you! Only STL can make that work (novice, intermediate, and advanced all bundled together and presented in a way only STL can do).

In Part 3, STL digs into Overload Resolution. A function template can overload non-template functions of the same name. In this scenario, function calls are resolved by first using template argument deduction to instantiate the function template with a unique specialization (STL taught us all about TAD in Part 2). If template argument deduction fails, the other function overloads are considered to resolve the call. These other overloads, also known as the candidate set, include nontemplate functions and other instantiated function templates. If template argument deduction succeeds, then the generated function is compared with the other functions to determine the best match, following the rules for overload resolution. [source]

As STL says: "I walk through why foo(const T&) beats foo(const T *), when given int *. The reason is surprisingly subtle."

Tune in.

C++ Primer 5th Edition, Part 1: How To Revise a Textbook

By Blog Staff | Jul 23, 2012 04:14 PM | Tags: None

The C++11 update to the classic C++ Primer is almost here! Andy Koenig reports:

Barbara Moo shipped the completed text of the C++ Primer, Fifth Edition to the publisher on July 13. As far as I know, copies are already being printed; they should be on bookstore shelves by mid-August.

This book has been a major project for her for the past two years or so, and an all-consuming one since about the beginning of this year. I've spent a fair amount of time on it as well: reading drafts, making comments and suggestions, running test programs, and so on. As a result, I've had a pretty good idea of what she's been thinking about as she wrote the book, and I'm in a position not only to tell you what I've learned about her strategy, but also why I think her strategy is a sensible one

[more]

Core C++, 2 of N: Template Argument Deduction -- Stephan T. Lavavej

By Blog Staff | Jul 9, 2012 07:35 PM | Tags: advanced

Core C++, 2 of N: Template Argument Deduction -- Stephan T. Lavavej

Stephan T. Lavavej, aka STL, will take us on a journey of discovery within the exciting world of Core C++. We know lots of folks are either coming back to C++, coming to C++, or have never left C++. This lecture series, in n parts, is for all of you! Only STL can make that work (novice, intermediate, and advanced all bundled together and presented in a way only STL can do).

In part 2, STL will teach us all about Template Argument Deduction. Template arguments are deduced when a call is made to a template function, but some or all template arguments are omitted. The compiler will attempt to deduce the intended template arguments. In most cases, this works as expected. If it does not, a compilation error occurs, in which case you should specify the template arguments explicitly. Now, let's see what Stephan has to say about this.

Tune in. Learn.

Core C++, 1 of N: Name Lookup -- Stephan T. Lavavej

By Blog Staff | May 16, 2012 07:30 PM | Tags: intermediate advanced

Core C++, 1 of N: Name Lookup -- Stephan T. Lavavej

Stephan T. Lavavej, aka STL, will take us on a journey of discovery within the exciting world of Core C++. We know lots of folks are either coming back to C++, coming to C++, or have never left C++. This lecture series, in n parts, is for all of you! Only STL can make that work (novice, intermediate, and advanced all bundled together and presented in a way only STL can do).

In the following code, which functions are called? Why? Analyze the implications?

namespace A {
      struct X;
      struct Y;
      void f( int );
      void g( X );
}

namespace B {
       void f( int i ) {
            f( i );   // which f()?
        }
        void g( A::X x ) {
             g( x );   // which g()?
        }
        void h( A::Y y ) {
             h( y );   // which h()?
        }
}

We recommend you watch this entire episode before playing around with Herb's sample above (and don't read the GotW answer, either! That's cheating. Learn from STL. He's an outstanding teacher, as you know).

Tune in. Enjoy. Learn.