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CppCon 2024 High-Performance Numerical Integration in the Age of C++26 -- Vincent Reverdy

By Blog Staff | Sep 13, 2024 02:19 PM | Tags: None

Registration is now open for CppCon 2024! The conference starts on September 15 and will be held in person in Aurora, CO. To whet your appetite for this year’s conference, we’re posting some upcoming talks that you will be able to attend this year. Here’s another CppCon future talk we hope you will enjoy – and register today for CppCon 2024!

High-Performance Numerical Integration in the Age of C++26

Friday, September 20 13:30 - 14:30 MDT

by Vincent Reverdy

Summary of the talk:

Could we revisit numerical integrators in the light of C++26 and bring more genericity, performance, and expressivity to the domain? In this talk, we will explore how modern C++ techniques can add something new and relevant to one of the oldest and most basic task of scientific computing: the integration of systems of equations. We will examine, in particular, how most numerical integrators can be derived from a small set of first principles that can be easily mapped onto C++ concepts and composable algorithmic building blocks. One of the goal of the approach introduced in this presentation will be to achieve as much as possible with the simplest and smallest amount of code. C++23 and C++26 programming techniques, including reflection, will be leveraged to transfer some of the burden of implementation to the compiler while still ensuring maximum performance.

In practice, the talk will combine aspects of high-performance computing, numerical methods, and software architecture. We will start by summarizing recent discoveries made in applied mathematics on Runge-Kutta methods, linear multistep methods, and general linear methods to see how it can help design better abstractions that can be translated into C++ concepts. We will then examine how a few carefully crafted algorithmic building blocks can be combined to generate the whole diversity of numerical integrators from first principles. The automation of this approach using C++23 and C++26's reflection to make the compiler generate highly efficient code will be then discussed in great length. Next, we will dive into parallelization strategies, including distributed ones as well as heterogenous computing. Some perspectives will also be given on the possibility for the compiler to branch on the best integrator given the mathematical properties of a system of equations as well as ways to derive new integrators at compile-time.

To illustrate our approach, we will examine the behavior and performance of numerous integrators on several real-world problems including a supercomputing N-body code for cosmology that simulates the gravitational dynamics of large scale astrophysical structures in an expanding Universe. A great care will be taken to make all the code and examples as reproducible and standalone as possible so that most of the presented content can simply be copied and pasted to make it work everywhere. Finally, even if the talk will focus on the particular case of numerical integration, the methodology presented in this talk will be applicable everywhere in scientific computing and beyond to achieve better software architecture in technical contexts.

Vincent Reverdy is a Full Researcher in Computer Science and Astrophysics at French Center for Scientific Research (CRNS) and located at the Annecy Laboratory for Particle Physics (LAPP) in the French Alps. He also is a member of the French delegation to the C++ Standards Committee. After a PhD at the Paris Observatory in 2014 on the topic of numerical cosmology and general relativity for which he explored extensively advanced metaprogramming techniques, he joined the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the US. There, he led an interdisciplinary research group in both computer science and computational astrophysics, trying to bridge the gap between programming languages and computational sciences. In late 2019 he moved back to France to continue to work on software architecture aspects related to astrophysics, and joined CNRS in January 2022 to lead long-term research aiming at building bridges between theoretical computer science including type theory and category theory on one side, and computational sciences with a focus on numerical astrophysics on the other side. Finally, as a member of the C++ committee, he has been working extensively on low-level programming components, including bit manipulation, as well as mathematical abstractions.

CppCon 2024 Contracts for C++ -- Timur Doumler

By Blog Staff | Sep 11, 2024 02:16 PM | Tags: None

Contracts for C++

Wednesday, September 18 14:00 - 15:00 MDT

by Timur Doumler

Summary of the talk:

Design by Contract is a very effective approach for writing safer, more correct programs. It has been successfully implemented in programming languages like Eiffel and Ada. Attempts to add a Contracts facility to C++ have a long and storied history spanning two decades. Since the last attempt to standardise Contracts (for the C++20 Standard) has failed, SG21 — the Contracts Study Group on the C++ Standard Committee – has been working on a new design, the so-called Contracts MVP, which is now essentially feature-complete and on track to make it into the upcoming C++26 Standard.

In this talk, we present the current design of the Contracts MVP targeting C++26. We discuss preconditions, postconditions, assertions, contract-violation handling and much more. We consider how the Contracts MVP provides a superior replacement for custom assertion macros and, when used correctly, can significantly improve the safety and correctness of your code.

Timur Doumler is the co-host of CppCast and an active member of the ISO C++ standard committee, where he is currently co-chair of SG21, the Contracts study group. Timur started his journey into C++ in computational astrophysics, where he was working on cosmological simulations. He then moved into the audio and music technology industry, where he has been working for over a decade and co-founded the music tech startup Cradle. In the past, Timur also worked for JetBrains, first as a developer on CLion's C++ parser and later as a Developer Advocate for C++ developer tools. Currently, Timur lives in Finland, where he is organising the monthly C++ Helsinki meetup. Timur is passionate about clean code, good tools, low latency, and the evolution of the C++ language.

CppCon 2024 Data Structures That Make Video Games Go Round -- Al-Afiq Yeong

By Blog Staff | Sep 9, 2024 02:14 PM | Tags: None

Data Structures That Make Video Games Go Round

Friday, September 20 14:45 - 15:45 MDT

by Al-Afiq Yeong

Summary of the talk:

Modern video games are complex beasts that contains multiple systems interacting with one another storing, transferring and processing large sets of data in real time. While some data structures from the standard library such as the std::vector gets you by 90% of the time you need to store and process data, there will be the occasional 10% that requires a unique take.

This presentation aims to discuss the unique data structures that are commonly used in video games / game engines that caters to the occasional 10%. We will go over several systems outlining their requirements, constraints and present custom data structures that gets the job done.

Al-Afiq Yeong is a Software Engineer currently working in the Engine team at Criterion. His day to day involves performance monitoring games, making sure memory gets managed efficiently and developing new technologies that will empower future games developed with Frostbite. Prior to games, he was a full stack developer maintaining and building web apps in the service, nuclear and finance industry. Outside work, he spends most of his time writing his own rendering engine while trying to avoid the allure of the games sitting in his Steam library.

CppCon 2024 Embracing an Adversarial Mindset for C++ Security -- Amanda Rousseau

By Blog Staff | Sep 6, 2024 02:15 PM | Tags: None

Embracing an Adversarial Mindset for C++ Security

Wednesday, September 18 10:30 - 12:00 MDT

by Amanda Rousseau

Summary of the talk:

In an era where cybersecurity threats are ever-evolving, securing C++ applications has never been more critical. This keynote will explore how adopting an adversarial mindset can empower developers to proactively identify and mitigate vulnerabilities. We will delve into common C++ vulnerabilities, the “Rule of Two” security guidelines, and practical strategies for reducing attack surfaces and defending against attack vectors. Additionally, we will discuss recent trends in vulnerabilities, highlight bug bounty costs, and examine real-world examples of vulnerabilities exploited by threat actors. This talk will provide valuable insights into adopting an adversarial mindset and implementing robust security practices in your C++ projects.

Amanda is an industry expert on malware and understanding ways to be robust against attacks.

CppCon 2024 Reflection Is Not Contemplation -- Andrei Alexandrescu

By Blog Staff | Sep 4, 2024 02:14 PM | Tags: None

Reflection Is Not Contemplation

Friday, September 20 14:45 - 15:45 MDT

by Andrei Alexandrescu

Summary of the talk:

The C++ community has long been interested in reflection, and we have made significant progress in adding core reflection capabilities to the language. While there is emerging clarity on the querying side of reflection—inspecting existing code artifacts programmatically—there is considerably less consensus on the generative aspect: using reflection insights to emit new code. As a result, current proposals showcase a stark contrast between well-polished reflection query capabilities and limited code generation capabilities.

Reifying only the reflection of preexisting code in an Ouroboros manner leads to a curious circularity that hinders the synthesis of new artifacts. This talk provides examples that demonstrate the necessity of generative capabilities in reflection and discusses current and upcoming proposals for generative extensions in C++ reflection.

Andrei Alexandrescu is a Principal Research Scientist at NVIDIA. He wrote three best-selling books on programming (Modern C++ Design, C++ Coding Standards, and The D Programming Language) and numerous articles and papers on wide-ranging topics from programming to language design to Machine Learning to Natural Language Processing to fundamental algorithms. Andrei holds a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Washington and a BSc in Electrical Engineering from University "Politehnica" Bucharest. He is the Vice President of the D Language Foundation.

CppCon 2024 Gazing Beyond Reflection for C++26 -- Daveed Vandevoorde

By Blog Staff | Sep 3, 2024 08:25 AM | Tags: None

Gazing Beyond Reflection for C++26

Friday, September 20 16:15 - 18:00 MDT

by Daveed Vandevoorde

Summary of the talk:

In less than a year since its original publication, the WG21 proposal “Reflection for C++26” (P2996) has made good progress towards its titular goal. From its inception, we intended that design to offer a modest-but-useful set of features with a solid foundation on top of which we will be able to incrementally grow an easy-to-use, rich, and extensible C++ meta-programming framework. This keynote will review some of the fundamental tools proposed in P2996 and follow up with a vision for some additional capabilities that we’re working on.

David ("Daveed") Vandevoorde is a Belgian computer scientist who lives near Princeton, NJ, USA. He is vice-president of engineering at the Edison Design Group (EDG), where he contributes primarily to the implementation of their C++ compiler front end. He is an active member of the C++ standardization committee where he is primarily active in the core language evolution work. His recent work in that context has primarily been about extending the capabilities of “constexpr evaluation”. Daveed is also one of the five members of the committee’s “direction group”. He is the primary author of the well-regarded “C++ Templates: A Complete Guide” (now available in its second edition).

CppCon 2024 When Nanoseconds Matter: Ultrafast Trading Systems in C++ -- David Gross

By Blog Staff | Sep 2, 2024 02:13 PM | Tags: None

When Nanoseconds Matter: Ultrafast Trading Systems in C++

Thursday, September 19 10:30 - 12:00 MDT

by David Gross

Summary of the talk:

Achieving low latency in a trading system cannot be an afterthought; it must be an integral part of the design from the very beginning. While low latency programming is sometimes seen under the umbrella of "code optimization", the truth is that most of the work needed to achieve such latency is done upfront, at the design phase. How to translate our knowledge about the CPU and hardware into C++? How to use multiple CPU cores, handle concurrency issues and cost, and stay fast?

In this talk, I will be sharing with you some industry insights on how to design from scratch a low latency trading system. I will be presenting building blocks that application developers can directly re-use when in their trading systems (or some other high performance, highly concurrent applications).

Additionally, we will delve into several algorithms and data structures commonly used in trading systems, and discuss how to optimize them using the latest features available in C++. This session aims to equip you with practical knowledge and techniques to enhance the performance of your systems and make informed decisions about the tools and technologies you choose to employ.

CppCon 2024 To Int or to Uint, This is the Question -- Alex Dathskosky

By Blog Staff | Aug 31, 2024 03:25 PM | Tags: None

To Int or to Uint, This is the Question

Thursday, September 19 15:15 - 16:15 MDT

by Walter E. Brown

Summary of the talk:

In our daily work, we often use integral data types to perform arithmetic calculations, but we may not always consider how the selection of the data type can affect performance and compiler optimizations. This talk will delve into the importance of choosing the correct data type for the job and how it impacts compiler optimizations. We will also examine the overall performance implications for the application. We will explore specific algorithms where using unsigned data types is more beneficial and other situations where signed data types are the best choice. Furthermore this talk will dive into the differences between signed and unsigned integers, how the processor handles certain operations and explain many of the surprising pitfalls of using integral types.
Attendees will come away with a deeper understanding of how data type selection can impact their code and how to make better choices for optimal performance.

This session will follow the guidelines from my short article on LinkedIn but it will go into higher details and contain more examples and explanations.

Alex has over 17 years of software development experience, working on systems, low-level generic tools and high-level applications. Alex has worked as an integration/software developer at Elbit, senior software developer at Rafael, technical leader at Axxana, Software manager at Abbott Israel and now a group manager a technical manager at Speedata.io an Exciting startup the will change Big Data and analytics as we know it .On His current Job Alex is developing a new CPU/APU system working with C++20, Massive metaprogramming and development of LLVM to create the next Big thing for Big Data. _x000D_
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Alex is a C++ expert with a strong experience in template meta-programming. Alex also teaches a course about the new features of modern C++, trying to motivate companies to move to the latest standards.

CppCon 2024 C++ Exceptions for Smaller Firmware -- Khalil Estell

By Blog Staff | Aug 29, 2024 03:14 PM | Tags: None

C++ Exceptions for Smaller Firmware

Tuesday, September 17 10:30 - 12:00 MDT

by Khalil Estell

Summary of the talk:

For years, developers have overlooked a powerful tool for reducing binary size: C++ exceptions. Join me on a deep dive into the world of exceptions and discover how they can be harnessed to create more space efficient firmware. We’ll explore the requirements and best practices of embedded development, and show what is required to use exceptions in that environment. By the end of this talk, you’ll have a thorough understanding of how exceptions are handled, what their space costs are, and how exceptions compare to functional errors as values.

Khalil is a ISO C++ Committee Member and has extensive experience writing production firmware.

CppCon 2024 An Ode to Concepts -- Nina Ranns

By Blog Staff | Aug 28, 2024 01:51 PM | Tags: None

An Ode to Concepts

Friday, September 20 09:00 - 10:00 MDT

by Nina Ranns

Summary of the talk:

Concepts are a long awaited C++ feature. They allow constraining a template in a much more elegant way than various enable_if tricks. In this lecture we cover the basics of concepts syntax, how to write a concept and how to apply a concept in your code. Then we look at one woman's experience of implementing a heavily constrained type before and after introduction of concepts.

Nina Ranns has been a member of the C++ standard committee since 2013, focusing mostly on the core part of the language, and committee secretary since 2018. Throughout her career she has worked for Siemens, Motorola, Datasift, and Symantec on everything from parts of the UMTS network to cloud based antivirus products. Currently an independent consultant with contracts for EDG, QT, and most recently Bloomberg, where she is eagerly extending her library knowledge and helping create new polymorphic-allocator friendly library types.