CppCon 2016: C++14 Reflections Without Macros, Markup nor External Tooling..--Antony Polukhin

By Adrien Hamelin | Jul 4, 2017 01:08 PM | Tags: c++14 advanced

Have you registered for CppCon 2017 in September? Don’t delay – Registration is open now.

While we wait for this year’s event, we’re featuring videos of some of the 100+ talks from CppCon 2016 for you to enjoy. Here is today’s feature:

C++14 Reflections Without Macros, Markup nor External Tooling..

by Antony Polukhin

(watch on YouTube) (watch on Channel 9)

Summary of the talk:

C++ was lacking the reflections feature for a long time. But a new metaprogramming trick was discovered recently: we can get some information about POD structure by probing it's braced initializes. Combining that trick with variadic templates, constexpr functions, implicit conversion operators, SFINAE, decltype and integral constants we can count structure's fields and even deduce type of each field.

Now the best part: everything works without any additional markup nor macros typically needed to implement reflections in C++.

In this talk I'll explain most of the tricks in detail, starting from a very basic implementation that is only capable of detecting fields count and ending up with a fully functional prototype capable of dealing with nested PODs, const/volatile qualified pointers, pointers-to-pointers and enum members. Highly useful use-cases will be shown a the end of the talk. You may start experimenting right now using the implementation at https://github.com/apolukhin/magic_get.

CppCon 2016: Embracing Standard C++ for the Windows Runtime--Kenny Kerr & James McNellis

By Adrien Hamelin | Jul 3, 2017 11:03 AM | Tags: intermediate community

Have you registered for CppCon 2017 in September? Don’t delay – Registration is open now.

While we wait for this year’s event, we’re featuring videos of some of the 100+ talks from CppCon 2016 for you to enjoy. Here is today’s feature:

Embracing Standard C++ for the Windows Runtime

by Kenny Kerr & James McNellis

(watch on YouTube) (watch on Channel 9)

Summary of the talk:

Believe it or not, avoiding language extensions and embracing modern C++ will make it easier for you to write code for Windows. The Universal Windows Platform in Windows 10 provides the ability for developers to write apps for many devices in many languages. To achieve this goal, it uses the Windows Runtime platform technology to expose functionality from the operating system into languages, including C++. Microsoft wants to make the Windows Runtime naturally and easily available to standard C++ developers. "C++/WinRT" (formerly moderncpp.com) is a standard C++ library and toolset currently under development at Microsoft. It includes a standalone compiler, which converts Windows Runtime metadata into a header-only library. The source code uses standard syntax consumable by any C++ compiler, making it easier for developers to use Windows Runtime APIs from C++.

We will begin this session with the goals of the "C++/WinRT" project. We'll look at the primitives of the Windows Runtime ABI and how this C++ library provides a natural projection of those primitives. We'll look at how C++11 and C++14 language features make it easier to encapsulate the COM infrastructure that underpins the Windows Runtime. Finally, we'll look at how we've optimized the implementation and discuss how a handful of compiler optimizations can make this C++ library efficient and effective for building a wide range of applications.

C++ Weekly Episode 70: C++ IIFE in quick-bench.com—Jason Turner

By Jason Turner | Jul 3, 2017 10:18 AM | Tags: performance efficiency c++11 basics

Episode 70 of C++ Weekly.

C++ IIFE in quick-bench.com

by Jason Turner

About the show:

We are commonly taught to const everything that we can in C++. One way to accomplish this goal in the post-C++11 world is to use a immediately invoked lambda (equivalent to an IIFE in the JavaScript world) that generates a value for us, which we assign to a const value. But what impact does this design decision have on the quality of code generated and the performance? In this episode of C++ Weekly we use the new website quick-bench to test the various options available.

CppCon 2016: Deploying C++ modules to 100s of millions of lines of code--Manuel Klimek

By Adrien Hamelin | Jun 30, 2017 02:57 PM | Tags: performance experimental community

Have you registered for CppCon 2017 in September? Don’t delay – Registration is open now.

While we wait for this year’s event, we’re featuring videos of some of the 100+ talks from CppCon 2016 for you to enjoy. Here is today’s feature:

Deploying C++ modules to 100s of millions of lines of code

by Manuel Klimek

(watch on YouTube) (watch on Channel 9)

Summary of the talk:

Compile times are a pain point for C++ programmers all over the world. Google is no exception.. We have a single unified codebase with hundreds of millions of lines of C++ code, all of it built from source. As the size of the codebase and the depth of interrelated interfaces exposed through textually included headers grew, the scaling of compiles became a critical issue.

Years ago we started working to build technology in the Clang compiler that could help scale builds more effectively than textual inclusion. This is the core of C++ Modules: moving away from the model of textual inclusion. We also started preparing our codebase to migrate to this technology en masse, and through a highly automated process. It's been a long time and a tremendous effort, but we'd like to share where we are as well as what comes next.

In this talk, we will outline the core C++ Modules technology in Clang. This is just raw technology at this stage, not an integrated part of the C++ programming language. That part is being worked on by a large group of people in the ISO C++ standards committee. But we want to share how Google is using this raw technology internally to make today's C++ compiles faster, what it took to get there, and how you too can take advantage of these features. We will cover everything from the details of migrating a codebase of this size to use a novel compilation model to the ramifications for both local and distributed build systems. We hope to give insight into the kinds of benefits that technology like C++ Modules can bring to a large scale C++ development environment.

CppCast Episode 107: and move semantics with Howard Hinnant

By robwirving | Jun 30, 2017 07:03 AM | Tags: None

Episode 107 of CppCast the only podcast for C++ developers by C++ developers. In this episode Rob and Jason are joined by Howard Hinnant from Ripple to talk about <chrono>, his date & time library (and proposal) and his work on move semantics.

CppCast Episode 107: <chrono> and move semantics with Howard Hinnant

by Rob Irving and Jason Turner

About the interviewee:

Howard Hinnant is a Senior Software Engineer at Ripple and the lead author of several C++11/14 features including: move semantics, unique_ptr, chrono, condition_variable_any, shared_mutex and std::lock. He is also the lead author of two LLVM projects libc++ and libc++abi.

CppCon 2016: AAAARGH!? Adopting Almost Always Auto Reinforces Good Habits!?--Andy Bond

By Adrien Hamelin | Jun 28, 2017 08:56 AM | Tags: performance c++11

Have you registered for CppCon 2017 in September? Don’t delay – Registration is open now.

While we wait for this year’s event, we’re featuring videos of some of the 100+ talks from CppCon 2016 for you to enjoy. Here is today’s feature:

AAAARGH!? Adopting Almost Always Auto Reinforces Good Habits!?

by Andy Bond

(watch on YouTube) (watch on Channel 9)

Summary of the talk:

Prominent members of the C++ community are advocating the "almost-always-auto" idiom, but there are understandable concerns from many about its implications. This case study will demonstrate how it may be applied in different situations, suggest ways to avoid performance penalties, introduce algorithms to minimize the "almost" part, and discuss the overall impact.

Why typename?-- Everything Cpp

By Adrien Hamelin | Jun 26, 2017 12:30 PM | Tags: intermediate

Why and how do we use typename?

Why typename?

by Everything Cpp

From the video:

Whether you've been using C++ for days or years, misunderstanding the usage of 'typename' can observably lead you through the 5 stages of grief. Unfortunately, all too often, 'acceptance' means just throwing the keyword around until the compiler stops correcting you. Good luck should you need to use the 'template' keyword in a similar fashion.

In this video, we explore just what 'typename' is used for, how you can avoid these errors, and the obnoxious exception to the rule that causes people to doubt their understanding.

CppCon 2016: Building Software Capital: How to write the highest quality code and why--David Sankel

By Adrien Hamelin | Jun 26, 2017 12:25 PM | Tags: efficiency community

Have you registered for CppCon 2017 in September? Don’t delay – Registration is open now.

While we wait for this year’s event, we’re featuring videos of some of the 100+ talks from CppCon 2016 for you to enjoy. Here is today’s feature:

Building Software Capital: How to write the highest quality code and why

by David Sankel

(watch on YouTube) (watch on Channel 9)

Summary of the talk:

This talk discusses the ins and outs of how to write software that is at such a high standard that it gets reused everywhere. It covers organization, design, infrastructure, testing, documentation, reviews, and general suggestions based on my experience in the industry.

CppCast Episode 106: system_error and Boost Outcome Review with Charley Bay

By robwirving | Jun 23, 2017 07:11 AM | Tags: None

Episode 106 of CppCast the only podcast for C++ developers by C++ developers. In this episode Rob and Jason are joined by Charley Bay from F5 Networks to talk about his recent CppNow talk on system_error and the Boost Outcome review.

CppCast Episode 106: system_error and Boost Outcome Review with Charley Bay

by Rob Irving and Jason Turner

About the interviewee:

Charley Bay is a Software developer at F5 Networks with 25+ years experience in large-scale and distributed systems for low-latency C and C++.

std::optional Video -- Robert Douglas

By rwdougla | Jun 22, 2017 01:18 PM | Tags: c++17

Video detailing the new C++17 feature, std::optional

<img alt="" data-cke-saved-src="http://shoeelfsoftware.com/everythingcpp/optional_intro.png" src="http://shoeelfsoftware.com/everythingcpp/optional_intro.png" 300px;="" height:="" 169px;"="" style="float: right;">