6 impossible things - Kevlin Henney - Opening Keynote Meeting C++ 2023
Kevlin Henney gave the opening keynote at Meeting C++ 2023
6 impossible things - Kevlin Henney - Opening Keynote Meeting C++ 2023
by Kevlin Henney
Video:
Events
ACCU 2024 Call for Speakers -- ACCU
The ACCU is now putting together its program, and they want you to speak on C++. The ACCU conference has strong C++ tracks, though it is not a C++-only conference. If you have something to share, check out their
Call for Speakers
by ACCU
About the conference:
The ACCU Conference is the annual conference of the ACCU membership, but is open to any and all who wish to attend. The tagline for the ACCU is "Professionalism in Programming", which captures the whole spectrum of programming languages, tools, techniques and processes involved in advancing our craft. While there remains a core of C and C++ - with many members participating in respective ISO standards bodies - the conference, like the organisation, embraces other language ecosystems and you should expect to see sessions on C#, D, F#, Go, Javascript, Haskell, Java, Kotlin, Lisp, Python, Ruby, Rust, Swift and more. There are always sessions on TDD, BDD, and how to do programming right.
The ACCU Conference is a conference by programmers for programmers about programming.
The Call For Speakers will remain open until midnight (GMT) on 17th November 2023.
Meeting C++ 2023 is streaming all tracks from Berlin
Meeting C++ 2023 will stream all keynotes and talks from Berlin to the online world. After the conference all livestreams will be available in the online platform to all attendees.
Streaming all talks from Berlin
by Jens Weller
From the article:
Quickly announcing that you can see all the talks at Meeting C++ 2023!
You still have this and next week to get your tickets for Meeting C++ 2023, which enables you to either see the talks live in Berlin or watch online! This has been an important goal for this year: make all tracks available to the online conference once we return to be onsite again. Last year has shown that the online conference adds great value to the C++ community in giving folks access to talk that other wise would be only seen by a small group in Berlin.
CppCon 2023 Back to Basics: Algorithms -- Klaus Iglberger
Registration is now open for CppCon 2023! The conference starts on October 1 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 2023!
Back to Basics: Algorithms
Tuesday, October 3 • 09:00 - 10:00
by Klaus Iglberger
Summary of the talk:
“There was never any question that the [standard template] library represented a breakthrough in efficient and extensible design” (Scott Meyers, Effective STL, 2008)
Originally developed as part of the Standard Template Library (STL), algorithms have become a must-know tool for every C++ developer. They increase productivity, significantly reduce bugs, and improve maintainability. This talk explains why and how algorithms do this. Additionally, it demonstrates why they are an amazing example for good, extensible software design.
CppCon 2023 A Fast, Compliant JSON Pull Parser for Writing Robust Applications -- Jonathan Müller
Registration is now open for CppCon 2023! The conference starts on October 1 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 2023!
Express Your Expectations: A Fast, Compliant JSON Pull Parser for Writing Robust Applications
Tuesday, October 3 • 09:00 - 10:00
by Jonathan Müller
Summary of the talk:
There are, by now, several well-established C++ JSON libraries, for example, boost.JSON, rapidjson, and simdjson. C++ developers can choose between DOM parsers, SAX parsers, and pull parsers. DOM parsers are by design slow and use a lot of memory, SAX parsers are clumsy to use and the only well-known pull parser simdjson does not fully validate JSON documents and also has high non-constant memory usage. Our open-source JSON parser fills the gap between the existing parser libraries. It is a fully validating, fast, pull parser with O(1) memory usage.
Its main contribution, however, is the API design. All existing parsers verify that a parsed document is valid JSON. But most applications require the data to have a specific structure, for example, that an object has specific required keys while other keys may be optional. Their associated values in turn are expected to be, for example, strings, objects or arrays. Currently, developers need to implement their own checks and their own error handling on top of the existing parser APIs.
Our API forces developers to express these semantical constraints, providing automatic error handling in return. The resulting code concisely documents the required JSON structure and always handles errors correctly. We have found this to be extremely useful in practice.
This talk will show the JSON parser API in practice, compare it to the established parsers, and will demonstrate some elegant generic programming C++ techniques to beginners and intermediate C++ developers.
CppCon 2023 The Story on the Misuse of Exceptions and How to Do Better -- Peter Muldoon
Registration is now open for CppCon 2023! The conference starts on October 1 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 2023!
Exceptionally Bad: The Story on the Misuse of Exceptions and How to Do Better
Tuesday, October 3 • 09:00 - 10:00
by Peter Muldoon
Summary of the talk:
Exceptions were originally heralded as a new modern way to handle errors. However the C++ community is split as to whether exceptions are useful or should be banned outright. It has not helped the pro-exception lobby that in their enthusiasm to embrace exceptions, a lot of code has been written that puts exceptions in a bad light.
In this talk, We will present the original intent/history of exceptions and a brief overview of how exception mechanics work and how they circumvent the usual stack return mechanism to set the stage. we will then examine the philosophy of using exceptions and then the many cases of exception misuse including resource management, retries, hierarchies, data passing and control flow to name but a few.
For each case, we will then suggest better ways to handle each specific situation. In many cases, exceptions are often dropped in favor of some other more appropriate paradigm.
Finally, we will introduce situations that can truly benefit from exceptions and what a model exception class might look like.
CppCon 2023 Powered by AI: A Cambrian Explosion for C++ Software Development Tools -- Emery Berger
Registration is now open for CppCon 2023! The conference starts on October 1 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 2023!
Powered by AI: A Cambrian Explosion for C++ Software Development Tools
Thursday, October 5 • 09:35 - 10:05
by Emery Berger
Summary of the talk:
Large language models like GPT-4 are achieving state of the art results in a wide variety of well-studied areas, eclipsing past work in well-studied areas like auto-completion. I argue that they should also presage a "Cambrian explosion" – a wave of radically new kinds of software development tools, all powered by AI, that will make all our lives easier. This talk will focus on several tools of particular interest to C++ developers. First, as any C++ developer knows, C++ compiler errors are notoriously verbose and can be hard to decode even for experts. To address this challenge, we created CWhy, a compiler wrapper that translates C or C++ compiler errors into readable explanations, and even proposes potential fixes. Beyond compile-time errors, C++ developers must also spend considerable time in debuggers (like `gdb` or `lldb`) trying to track down the root cause of runtime errors. To simplify this task, we created ChatDBG, a system that augments debuggers with a new command you can run for post-mortem debugging: `why`. This command performs a root cause analysis of the issue leading to the error (e.g., a segfault) and proposes a fix. For both of these projects, we share some details about their internal workings, describe how they can effectively leverage large language models, and present examples of them in action.
CppCon 2023 C++20 Modules: The Packaging and Binary Redistribution Story -- Luis Caro Campos
Registration is now open for CppCon 2023! The conference starts on October 1 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 2023!
C++20 Modules: The Packaging and Binary Redistribution Story
Monday, October 2 • 16:45 - 17:45
by Luis Caro Campos
Summary of the talk:
C++ modules are one of the most talked-about features introduced in C++20, but are still not widely in use. One of the biggest promises of C++ modules is to reduce overall compilation times by removing the need to have the compiler parsing the same include files across a big number of translation units. However, despite available compiler implementations, modules are still not generally in use. Why is this?
When put into practice, C++ modules introduce a dependency in the order in which translation units are built: in order to build a source file that contains a module import statement, the source file that exports the name module needs to have been compiled into a binary module interface beforehand. This calls for compilers and build systems to work together to correctly derive the order in which source files need to be compiled.
To overcome this, paper P1689 has been proposed for compilers to report the dependencies between source files, so that build tools (e.g. CMake and Ninja) can use this information to derive the correct build order. However, the currently available implementations have limitations and where all the source files that export module definitions should be visible by the same build.
How does this work in scenarios where we have dependencies (e.g. third-party) that are provided externally to the current build system? We have become accustomed to a model where a “binary” package contains, at the very least, header files (.h/.hpp) for the compiler, and libraries (.a/.so/.lib/.dylib) for the linker. How do modules fit into this model when it comes to installing and distributing prebuilt binaries? Now more files are required on the consuming side: the compiled binary module interface, and the corresponding module interface source file.
This talk will review the current state of modules in C++, by presenting the experience currently provided by the most recent versions of the relevant tools. Special focus will be put on the potential of using C++20 modules for external library dependencies, and how far we are from being able to consume external libraries using modules.
CppCon 2023 Building Effective Embedded Systems: Architectural Best Practices -- Gili Kamma
Registration is now open for CppCon 2023! The conference starts on October 1 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 2023!
Building Effective Embedded Systems: Architectural Best Practices
Friday, October 6 • 13:30 - 14:30
by Gili Kamma
Summary of the talk:
Embedded development is a complex process that brings together software, electronics, physics, mechanics, and algorithms.
Designing a system with embedded components requires careful consideration of multiple factors. However, there is a lack of knowledge regarding correct practices in building embedded systems. In my talk, I will offer valuable insights to enhance the effectiveness of embedded development, focusing on improving robustness, speed, and maintainability.By addressing the challenges in this field, attendees will gain a deeper understanding of how to design and build embedded systems correctly. Through practical advice and best practices, I aim to empower developers to overcome obstacles and achieve successful outcomes in their projects.
CppCon 2023 Finding Your Codebases C++ Roots -- Katherine Rocha
Registration is now open for CppCon 2023! The conference starts on October 1 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 2023!
Finding Your Codebases C++ Roots
Friday, October 6 • 10:30 - 11:30
by Katherine Rocha
Summary of the talk:
Codebases contain all the history for a project, from designed-new features to hacked-together quick fixes that no one has come back to. Whenever new software development occurs, designed or not, the meaning of a section of code is morphed, hopefully to the intended purpose. When the next person comes along, they will need to understand the past “whys” behind decisions to create the most maintainable and cohesive codebase. This involves understanding not just the codebase’s history, but also C++’s history to effectively understand the story of how the code got to where it is now. In this talk, we will investigate the life cycle of a C++ codebase utilizing the skills and perspective of genealogy. We will address the difficulties in understanding a codebase’s C++ past, how that links to C++’s past, and how we can use that information to improve our codebases—now and in the future.