March 11-13, Online
March 16-18, Madrid, Spain
March 23-28, Croydon, London, UK
March 30, Kortrijk, Belgium
May 4-8, Aspen, CO, USA
May 4-8, Toronto, Canada
June 8 to 13, Brno, Czechia
June 17-20, Folkestone, UK
September 12-18, Aurora, CO, USA
November 6-8, Berlin, Germany
November 16-21, Búzios, Rio De Janeiro, Brazil
By Blog Staff | Jun 17, 2013 08:41 AM | Tags: None
Stroustrup's ACCU keynote video is now available online.
C++11: The Future Is Here
Bjarne Stroustrup
Summary: Bjarne Stroustrup keynotes on what C++ is in general, how C++11 makes simple things even simpler, resource management, generic programming, and concurrency.
By Blog Staff | Jun 11, 2013 09:38 AM | Tags: intermediate advanced
The two latest C++ lectures by Stephan T. Lavavej, the eponymous STL, are now available:
Core C++, 8 of n
In part 8, STL digs into the do-while loop, casts, one definition rule (ODR), and his variadic template array sorter. There is a lot of information in this episode, so get comfortable, tune in, and learn.
Core C++, 9 of n
In part 9, STL digs into lambdas and other expressions. Lambdas are very useful and you've no doubt been enjoying them in your modern C++ programming. As you can imagine, STL will go deep and teach you things about lambdas that you may not know. You'll also learn a lot about order of precedence and associativity for expressions in only the way Stephan can teach you (thorough treatment). Tune in.
By marshall | Jun 10, 2013 04:09 PM | Tags: intermediate c++now boostcon
The keynote addresses for C++Now 2013 are now available.
We are confronted today with the increasing complexity of our C++ software systems. To manage this complexity and build larger applications and systems, C++ strives to form emergent structures (often found in nature, such as snowflakes' symmetrical structures), where simple patterns combine to form a remarkably complex and powerful system. These structures provide both a means to limit the complexity of each component and the essential economies of scale we rely on when developing software.
From handheld devices to warehouse-sized data centers, motivated by smaller devices and increased concerns over power consumption, we are relying upon C++ to deliver these complex systems with unmatched efficiency. Our optimizing compilers today are more important than ever before and are utterly opaque to most practicing programmers. Compounding matters, the very emergent structures which allow C++ systems to scale for humans often provide unique and unsolved challenges to optimization.
In this talk, I will start with a brief overview of how modern optimizing compilers work with C++ code at a very high level. I will then walk through the specific structures and patterns of C++ code, which are at the core of forming emergent structures out of simple, elegant elements. I will also address how these interactions can be effectively modeled and analyzed by a compiler to produce efficient final programs. All of this will be illustrated by a collection of real world case studies, which are broadly applicable and show up throughout modern C++ code bases. My goal is to give a framework for understanding these interactions both in the C++ code and the optimizing compiler, so that programmers are aware of the implications posed by these patterns. Finally, I will introduce a set of principles and techniques for designing and implementing C++ programs and libraries to specifically clear the way for modern optimizers while retaining the simplicity of each component and the power of the combined whole.
We'll discuss language life cycles, particularly as they apply to C++, from a peek at some of the very early ideas and technology behind C++ to a proposal for the next step: yet another paradigm shift, not a evolution or revolution but simply a synchronizing of meta4layers — using fertilization of the multi-cell organism as an isomorph.
By Blog Staff | May 6, 2013 04:43 PM | Tags: advanced
The recent 2013 European Clang/LLVM developer meeting talk videos and/or slides are now available here.
Here are a few of the talks of interest to C++ developers. All have videos available except the last. Check out the page for details and a full talk list.
Keynotes
Optimization in LLVM - Numbers, A Case Study, and Looking Forward
Chandler Carruth (Google)Talks
clang-format - Automatic formatting for C++
Daniel Jasper (Google)Performing Source-to-Source Transformations with Clang
Olaf Krzikalla (TU Dresden)Run-time tracking of uninitialized data with MemorySanitizer
Evgeniy Stepanov (Google)LLVM on IBM POWER processors: a progress report
Ulrich Weigand (IBM)Tutorials
How to implement an LLVM Assembler
Simon Cook (Embecosm)The Clang AST (slides only)
Manuel Klimek (Google)
For more talks, and video/slide links, head over to the site.
By Blog Staff | May 1, 2013 12:11 PM | Tags: advanced
If you're familiar with functional language styles and you want an advanced look at how your favorite functional styles are supported in modern C++, with a dash of Haskell, check out these three videos by Bartosz Milewski:
Functional Patterns in C++ (slides)
by Bartosz Milewski
Part 1, Functors: First the introduction to some common functional patterns like Functor, which, surprisingly pops up everywhere. I'll show the example of a
unique_ptrand avectoras Functors. Of course, this is only in preparation for asynchronous functors.Part 2, Currying, Applicative: A little digression to Haskell and the Maybe functor and the explanation of currying. Then I'll show you the Applicative Functor pattern. This is, of course, in preparation for for the asynchronous applicative functor pattern.
Part 3, Asynchronous API, Monoid, Monad: The encapsulation of asynchronous API that doesn't lead to inversion of control and spaghetti code. Very natural example of a Monad Pattern.
Interestingly, Bartosz' talk ends with a plea for (essentially) future.then and a C#-style await... both of which are under active consideration in the C++ standards committee as part of a potential near-term C++ technical specification on concurrency and parallelism.
By Blog Staff | Apr 11, 2013 06:14 PM | Tags: None
From Bjarne Stroustrup's recent festschrift. Congratulations, Bjarne!
C++ Standards: Panel -- Workshop on Quality Software
Panel moderator: Alisdair Meredith
Panelists: Matt Austern, Jonathan Caves, Lawrence Crowl, Jan Christian van Winkel.
By Blog Staff | Feb 28, 2013 08:19 AM | Tags: intermediate basics
We continue to see modern C++ tool development across the industry continue apace. Here's another new cool C++-oriented tool with a nice seven-minute video on Channel 9:
Introducing Image Watch - A VS 2012 Plug-In for C++ Image and Video Debugging
Image Watch is a new Visual Studio 2012 plug-in for debugging C++ image and video processing applications, for example photo or augmented reality apps. Image Watch provides a watch window that can display in-memory bitmaps during debugging, so you no longer need to litter your code with "save-this-intermediate-image-to-a-file" statements when tracking down bugs. The initial release has built-in support for OpenCV image types and can be extended for viewing user-defined image types as well.
Here, Wolf Kienzle, Senior Research Developer, Interactive Visual Media group, Microsoft Research Redmond, explains and demos this excellent new tool for C++ developers building image, video or augmented reality apps. In effect, you can step into pixels...
By Blog Staff | Feb 11, 2013 11:42 AM | Tags: intermediate
Herb Sutter's biggest and deepest talk at C++ and Beyond 2012 is now online:
atomic<> Weapons: The C++ Memory Model and Modern Hardware
by Herb Sutter
This session in one word: Deep.
It's a session that includes topics I've publicly said for years is Stuff You Shouldn't Need To Know and I Just Won't Teach, but it's becoming achingly clear that people do need to know about it. Achingly, heartbreakingly clear, because some hardware incents you to pull out the big guns to achieve top performance, and C++ programmers just are so addicted to full performance that they'll reach for the big red levers with the flashing warning lights. Since we can't keep people from pulling the big red levers, we'd better document the A to Z of what the levers actually do, so that people don't SCRAM unless they really, really, really meant to.
Topics Covered:
- The facts: The C++11 memory model and what it requires you to do to make sure your code is correct and stays correct. We'll include clear answers to several FAQs: "how do the compiler and hardware cooperate to remember how to respect these rules?", "what is a race condition?", and the ageless one-hand-clapping question "how is a race condition like a debugger?"
- The tools: The deep interrelationships and fundamental tradeoffs among mutexes, atomics, and fences/barriers. I'll try to convince you why standalone memory barriers are bad, and why barriers should always be associated with a specific load or store.
- The unspeakables: I'll grudgingly and reluctantly talk about the Thing I Said I'd Never Teach That Programmers Should Never Need To Now: relaxed atomics. Don't use them! If you can avoid it. But here's what you need to know, even though it would be nice if you didn't need to know it.
- The rapidly-changing hardware reality: How locks and atomics map to hardware instructions on ARM and x86/x64, and throw in POWER and Itanium for good measure – and I'll cover how and why the answers are actually different last year and this year, and how they will likely be different again a few years from now. We'll cover how the latest CPU and GPU hardware memory models are rapidly evolving, and how this directly affects C++ programmers.
Herb adds on his blog:
Note: This is about the basic structure and tools, not how to write lock-free algorithms using atomics. That next-level topic may be on deck for this year’s C++ and Beyond in December, we’ll see...
By Blog Staff | Feb 5, 2013 11:31 AM | Tags: intermediate advanced
Two advanced talks by Stephan T. Lavavej (aka STL) are now available, the second being posted today:
Core C++, 7 of N
In Part 7, STL teaches us about Usual Arithmetic Conversions, Template Metaprogramming (TMP), and shares some of the Visual C++ STL internal implementation (some of it not yet released). Many of you have asked for some treatment of TMP and STL delivers!
Core C++, 8 of N
In part 8, STL digs into the do-while loop, casts, one definition rule (ODR), and his variadic template array sorter. There is a lot of information in this episode, so get comfortable, tune in, and learn.
By Blog Staff | Jan 8, 2013 01:42 PM | Tags: intermediate
Another C++ and Beyond 2012 talk is now available online on Channel 9.
[Ed.: Note that the talk title and abstract should read as below. The initial Channel 9 video posting used an outdated title and abstract, and will be corrected soon.]
C++ and Beyond 2012: C++ Concurrency
by Herb Sutter
Herb says:
I've spoken and written on these topics before. Here's what's different about this talk:
- Brand new: This material goes beyond what I've written and taught about before in my Effective Concurrency articles and courses.
- Cutting-edge current: It covers the best-practices state of the art techniques and shipping tools, and what parts of that are standardized in C++11 already (the answer to that one may surprise you!) and what's en route to near-term standardization and why, with coverage of the latest discussions.
- Blocking vs. non-blocking: What's the difference between blocking and non-blocking styles, why on earth would you care, which kinds does C++11 support, and how are we looking at rounding it out in C++1y?
The answers all matter to you – even the ones not yet in the C++ standard – because they are real, available in shipping products, and affect how you design your software today.