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C++Now 2014 talk slides now available

By Blog Staff | May 22, 2014 09:06 AM | Tags: None

Many of the slides from last week's sold-out C++Now event are now posted on GitHub at the link below, and more are still being added.

If you missed C++Now this year, head over to check out the new CppCon coming this September...

C++Now 2014 Presentations

Tuesday, May 13

Library in a Week - c++ templating engine

Keynote: Axiomatic Programming: From Euclidean Deductions to C++ Templates and Beyond

C++14: Through the Looking Glass

Coroutines, Fibers, and Threads, Oh My

The Canonical Class

ConceptClang: Theoretical Advances with Full C++ Concepts

Generic Programming of Generic Spaces: Compile-Time Geometric Algebra with C++11

Test-Driven Development With Boost.Test and Turtle Mock, Part I/II

Removing undefined behavior from integer operations: the bounded::integer library

Value Semantics and Range Algorithms - Composability and Efficiency

Preparing the C++11 Library AFIO for Boost Peer Review

Wednesday, May 14

MPL11: A New Metaprogramming Library for C++11

The Optimization of a Boost.Asio-Based Networking Server

Undefined Behavior in C++; what is it, and why should I care

Mach7: The Design and Evolution of a Pattern Matching Library for C++

Practical Type Erasure: A boost::any Based Configuration Framework

A Tutorial Introduction to C++11/14 Part I/II

C++11 in Space Plasma Model Development

C++11 Library Design

Goals for Better Code: Implement Complete Types

Multiplatform C++

Octopus: A Policy-Driven Framework for CFD Simulations

Thursday, May 15

Keynote: Beware of C++

Interactive Metaprogramming Shell Based on Clang

libcppa: Type-safe Messaging Systems in C++

Unicode in C++

CppComponents: A Modern Portable C++11 Component System

UI. Aesthetics. C++

Accelerator Programming with C++ AMP

Designing XML API for Modern C++

Modern C++ as Concurrent Assembly

Understanding &&

Boost Library Incubator | Zip Archive

Friday, May 16

Iterators May Stay | LibreOffice File

Value Semantics: It ain't about the syntax!

Create Your Own Refactoring Tool with Clang

How to Design C++ Implementations of Complex Combinatorial Algorithms

Intro to Functional Programming in C++

Managing Object Lifetimes

0xBADC0DE

Expected — An Exception-friendly Error Monad

Lifetime and Usage of Global, Thread-local, and Static Data

Functional Data Structures in C++

Asynchronous Programming Using Boost.MetaStateMachine and the Upcoming Asynchronous Library

Ownership of Memory in C++

Saturday, May 17

The Future of Accelerator Programming in C++

Functional Reactive Programming - Cleanly Abstracted Interactivity

Disambiguation: The Black Technology

My Thoughts on Large Code Base Change Ripple Management in C++

Future of Boost: Boostache

Future of Boost: Community Management Team

Vector of Objects vs Vector of Pointers Updated -- Bartlomiej Filipek

By Blog Staff | May 22, 2014 07:30 AM | Tags: performance memory intermediate efficiency

More in the "contiguous enables fast" department:

Vector of Objects vs Vector of Pointers Updated

by Bartlomiej Filipek

From the article:

For 1000 particles we need on the average 2000 cache line reads! This is 78% more cache line reads than the first case! Additionally Hardware Prefetcher cannot figure out the pattern -- it is random -- so there will be a lot of cache misses and stalls.

In our experiment the pointer code for 80k of particles was more 266% slower than the continuous case.

ACCU 2014 talk slides now available

By Blog Staff | May 21, 2014 02:58 PM | Tags: intermediate

[Ed: Here's a candidate for the most hilarious thing you'll probably see today: Kevlin Henney's slide deck, including a link to this @netbat tweet.]

The recent ACCU 2014 was another resounding success, and many of the talk slides have now been posted. You can find them here:

Slides, Photos, Blogs via #accu2014 (accu.org)

Some fun C++ highlights with slides available include:

  • Dietmar Kuhl · Performance Choices
  • Howard Hinnant · Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Move Semantics (and then some)
  • Hubert Matthews · Where is C++ headed?
  • Jonathan Wakely · There Ain't No Such Thing As A Universal Reference
  • Jonathan Wakely · The C++14 Standard Library
  • Kevlin Henney · Immutabilty FTW!
  • Marshall Clow · C++ Undefined Behavior -- what is it, and why should I care?
  • Olve Maudal · C++ Pub Quiz
  • Pattabi Raman · Random number generation in C++ -- present and potential future
  • Peter Sommerlad · C++14 an overview on the new standard for C++(11) programmers
  • Steve Love · Range and Elevation -- C++ in a modern world
  • ... and more (see the page).

CppCon: My Proposed Talks (Part 2) -- Herb Sutter

By Blog Staff | May 21, 2014 08:05 AM | Tags: intermediate experimental

cppcon-108.PNGFollowing up on Herb's three talk proposals posted yesterday, the other two titles and abstracts are now posted, this time of new talks (note: again, pending review and selection by the program committee, so this is not final -- they may or may not be selected if there is stronger material).

CppCon: My Proposed Talks (Part 2)

by Herb Sutter

From the post:

GC for C++, and C++ for GC: “Right” and “Wrong” Ways to Add Garbage Collection to C++ (1 to 2 hours)

"Garbage collection is essential to modern programming!" "Garbage collection is silly, who needs it!"

As is usual with extremes, both of these statements are wrong. Garbage collection (GC) is not needed for most C++ programs; we're very happy with determinism and smart pointers, and GC is absolutely penalizing when overused, especially as a default (or, shudder, only) memory allocator. However, the truth is that GC is also important to certain high-performance and highly-concurrent data structures, because it helps solve advanced lock-free problems like the ABA problem better than workarounds like hazard pointers.

This talk presents thoughts about how GC can be added well to C++, directly complementing (not competing with) C++'s existing strengths and demonstrating why, as Stroustrup says, "C++ is the best language for garbage collection."

 

Addressing C++’s #1 Problem: Defining a C++ ABI (1 hour)

"Why can't I share C++ libraries even between my own internal teams without using the identical compiler and switch settings?" "Why are operating system APIs written in unsafe C, instead of C++?" "Why can’t I use std::string in a public shared library interface; it's the C++ string, isn't it?!"

These and more perennial questions are caused by the same underlying problem: For various historical reasons, C++ does not have a standard binary interface, or ABI. Partial solutions exist, from the Itanium ABI which addresses only the language and only on some platforms, to COM and CORBA which do both less and far more than is needed.

It is deeply ironic that there actually is a way to write an API in C++ so that it has a de facto stable binary ABI on every platform: extern "C".

This session describes current work driven by the presenter to develop a standard C++ ABI. This does not mean having identical binaries on all platforms. It does mean tackling all of the above problems, including directly addressing the #1 valid reason to use C instead of C++, and removing a major obstacle to sharing binary C++ libraries in a modern way.

CppCon: My Proposed Talks (Part 1) -- Herb Sutter

By Blog Staff | May 20, 2014 07:24 AM | Tags: intermediate

cppcon-109.PNGWith the CppCon talk submission deadline upon us, we're starting to get glimpses of the potential CppCon conference program. In today's post, Herb Sutter mentions three of his five talk proposals (note: pending review and selection by the program committee, so this is not final -- they may or may not be selected if there is stronger material).

CppCon: My Proposed Talks (Part 1)

by Herb Sutter

From the post:

Lock-Free Programming – or, How to Juggle Razor Blades (~2 hours)

Example-driven talk on how to design and write lock-free algorithms and data structures using C++ atomic<> – something that can look deceptively simple, but contains very deep topics. (Important note: This is not the same as my "atomic<> Weapons" talk; that talk was about the "what they are and why" of the C++ memory model and atomics, and did not cover how to actually use atomics to implement highly concurrent algorithms and data structures.)

This talk is about the "how to use them successfully" part of atomics, including:

  • Best practices and style for using atomic<>s
  • Three or more examples, including lock-free mail slots and iterations of a lock-free linked list, all in portable Standard C++
  • Defining and applying the different levels of "lock-freedom" (wait-free, lock-free, obstruction-free) to develop highly concurrent algorithms and data structures
  • Explaining and applying key concepts including especially: linearizability; trading off concurrency vs. promptness; and trading off concurrency vs. throughput/utilization
  • Demonstrating and solving the ABA problem, with clean and simple code – that's right, did you know that in C++11 you can solve this without relying on esoterica like double-wide CAS (which isn’t always available) or hazard pointers (which are deeply complex) or garbage collection (which isn’t in the C++ standard... yet)?

Standardization Update: C++14 and the Seven Dwarfs (1 hour)

Standardization has accelerated: By the time we meet at CppCon, C++14 might already be ratified. But that's only one of eight (so far) work items now in flight. In this session, I'll give a brief summary of the new features coming in C++14 itself, and then a tour of the seven (7) near-term separate Technical Specifications already underway – think of these as the "C++14 wave" of deliverables.

The ISO C++ committee has transitioned to a "decoupled" model where updated versions of the standard are published more frequently, while at the same time major pieces of work can progress and be published independently from the Standard itself and delivered asynchronously in the form of Technical Specifications (TS’s) that are separate from the main Standard and can later be incorporated into the Standard. Come to this session to see how this is helping both the standard and C++ compiler implementations near you stay current with the latest in C++.

The topics covered will be:

  • C++14: What’s new in the new standard due this year
  • File System TS: Portable file system access
  • Library Fundamentals TS (small): string_view and optional<>
  • Array Extensions TS: Language and library dynamic arrays
  • Concepts Lite TS: Templates + constraints = ++usability and ++diagnostics
  • Concurrency TS: Nonblocking futures (.then, .when_*), executors, and (maybe) await
  • Parallelism TS: A whole new Parallel STL with both parallel and vector execution support
  • One of:
        – Networking TS (small): IP addresses, URIs, byte ordering
        – Transactional Memory TS: Language and library extensions for transactional memory instead of mutexes for many kinds of concurrency control

This session will present an overview of each set of features, what it looks like and how to use it, and why it’s important for the standard and for your own portable C++ code.

Modern C++ Style: Idioms of C++11/14 (1 to 3 hours)

This session will cover modern and current C++ style, focusing on C++14. It will demonstrate how major features and idioms from C++98 are now entirely replaced or subsumed and should be used no more; how other major features and idioms have been dramatically improved to the point where your code is cleaner and safer and you’ll even think in a different style; and how pervasive styles as common as variable declarations are changed forever, and not just for style but for serious technical safety and efficiency benefits. For one thing, you’ll never look at auto the same way again – and if hearing that makes you worry, worry not, just attend the session to dig deep into the good reasons for the new reality.

Why C++14? Two reasons: First, it really does "complete C++11" with small but important consistency features like generic lambdas and make_unique that let us teach modern C++ style with fewer “except for” footnotes. Second, C++14 “is” C++ for the next several years and it’s real; it is feature-complete and in the final stages of standardization, and more importantly we are already seeing near-complete conforming implementations becoming widely available around the same time C++14 is expected to be formally published.

C++14 is a small but important improvement on C++11 that really does complete the language. What this means is that we’re going to have a complete and simpler set of idioms and styles to learn and use.
 

Very Strong C++ Track at the NDC Conference [June 2-6, Oslo, Norway] -- Anders Schau Knatten

By Blog Staff | May 15, 2014 09:27 AM | Tags: None

A useful reminder:

Very Strong C++ Track at the NDC Conference [June 2-6, Oslo, Norway]

by Anders Schau Knatten

From the article:

... there’ll be no less than 13 talks, by Nico Josuttis, Scott Meyers, Andrei Alexandrescu, Hubert Matthews, Mike Long, Isak Styf, Ismail Pazarbasi, Olve Maudal, and myself. In addition, Andrei Alexandrescu will give a two day workshop. Here’s the full list:

Stopping the Spew -- Tony DaSilva

By Blog Staff | May 15, 2014 09:07 AM | Tags: None

Today on Bulldozer00:

Stopping the Spew!

by Tony DaSilva

From the article:

Every C++ programmer has experienced at least one, and most probably many, “Template Spew” (TS) moments. You know you’ve triggered a TS moment when, just after hitting the compile button on a program the compiler deems TS-worthy, you helplessly watch an undecipherable avalanche of error messages zoom down your screen at the speed of light. ...

... Fear not, because help is on the way via C++14 in the form of "concepts lite".

Quick Q: How do generic lambdas work? -- StackOverflow

By Blog Staff | May 12, 2014 08:31 AM | Tags: basics

Quick A: They generate a templated operator(), and that means you can call the same closure object with all sorts of different parameters and it just stamps out the function for each set of parameter types.

A "new classic" question on SO, classic because it was posted a year ago, but newly relevant because now the mainstream compilers are implementing the feature:

How does generic lambda work in C++14?

How does generic lambda work (auto keyword as argument type)?

Is it similar to templates where for each different argument type compiler generates functions with the same body but changed types or is it more similar to Java's generics?

Code example:

auto glambda = [](auto a) { return a; };