Test Driven C++

by Phil Nash

We know that testing is important, but writing tests is hard and takes time - and can be demotivating when you want to hack out features.

But what if we flipped the whole thing around? It turns out that by writing tests _first_ the dynamic changes in unexpected ways. Testing becomes easier. Adding features becomes easier. The dopamine hit you get from seeing something work becomes more frequent. Time lost to bugs and regressions virtually disappears. You start to get invited to bigger and better parties!

Ok, one of those statements is not guaranteed - but the rest are! If you've never tried TDD (perhaps you have heard of it but been skeptical), or maybe had a bad experience in the past, this talk will give you a sound intro to how it work, how you can get started, and what you can expect to achieve.

Visual Studio Code C++ July 2021 Update: Disassembly View, Macro Expansion and Windows ARM64 Debugging

by Julia Reid

The July 2021 update of the C++ extension for Visual Studio Code is here, bringing you brand new features— such as a Disassembly View while debugging, inline macro expansions, and debug support for Windows ARM64 architecture—along with a bunch of enhancements and bug fixes. To find out more about all the enhancements, check out our release notes on GitHub...

Upcoming C++ User Group Meetings in August 2021

by Jens Weller

The monthly overview of upcoming C++ User Group meetings. This time with offline, hybrid and online meetings.

In the first 3 weeks of August Meeting C++ online will host these events for you to get a first feeling on how a platform performs:

From Algorithm to Generic, Parallel Code

by Dietmar Kuhl

This presentation starts with a parallel algorithm as it is described in books and turns it into a generic implementation. Multiple options for running the algorithm concurrently based on different technologies (OpenMP, Threading Building Blocks, C++ standard-only) are explored.

Using parallel algorithms seems like an obvious way to improve the performance of operations. However, to utilize more processsing power often requires additional work to be done and depending on available resources and the size of the problem the parallel version may actually take longer than a sequential version. Looking at the actual implementation for an algorithm should clarify some of the tradeoffs.

Showing how a parallel algorithm can be implemented should also demonstrate how such an algorithm can be done when there is no suitable implementation available from the [standard C++] library. As the implementation of a parallel algorithms isn't trivial it should also become clear that using a readily available implementation is much preferable.

Testing online platforms for Meeting C++ 2021

by Jens Weller

For this year, the conference of Meeting C++ is online only. I've made this decision last year, when it was clear that this is an option that is available. With predictions of a 4th Wave in Europe in Fall, it seems to be the right decision. Since 2020 Meeting C++ online gathered a community of folks interested in C++ and attending online events into a User Group. With one year of experience in hosting online events, its time to move forward and see which platform should host these events in the future.

5th August: Teaching C++ with Victor Ciura
12th August: Ivan Cukic - Members through a looking glass!
19th August: Peter Sommerlad - Beyond rule of zero

Starting the review and feedback session for Meeting C++ 2021

by Jens Weller

Like every year, Meeting C++ gives the C++ community the chance to review the talks and give feedback on them for a short period. You'll be able to leave a comment on each talk and vote between 0 - 5, where 5 is best.

C++ is awesome, here's why...

by Vinit Jogani

C++ is, hands down, one of the most misunderstood languages in software developer pop culture today. People often compare it to C because it is a "low-level" language. Consequently, it has received a reputation of being an esoteric language that only the performance paranoid care about. This is far from true. I have been programming in C++ as my primary language for a while now and the developer experience is actually really good -- much better than I had imagined it would be.

In this article, I want to debunk some common myths about C++ that I heard before I started using it. Then, I want to talk about the actual superpowers that C++ provides you that most other languages do not...

Practical Memory Pool Based Allocators For Modern C++

by Misha Shalem

Runtime-deterministic memory allocations are a crucial aspect of any safety-critical real-time system. One of the simplest and widely adopted allocation mechanisms used in such systems is a memory pool with fixed block sizes. Unfortunately, the need to know the exact sizes of the memory blocks makes any practical usage of memory pools with standard C++ allocator-based approach rather problematic since users often “hide” real properties of allocations which are made under the hood. For example: STL’s node-based containers like 'std::map' as well as other standard mechanisms like 'std::promise' or 'std::allocate_shared'.

Being a company which focuses on real-time safety-critical applications, we still see a significant value in keeping compatibility with the standard allocator model as well as in following common conventions which are familiar to every C++ developer.

This talk presents an approach which uses a combination of a memory allocator implementation which instruments the code, and an external LLVM-based tool which extracts the instrumentation information and generates static memory pool definitions, allowing the allocator to switch from the heap to a memory pool without any further changes to the code. The presentation will walk through a simplest possible implementation of this approach.

spdlog 1.9.0 released with {fmt} 8.x support, new sink types and other improvements

• Support for {fmt} lib version 8.x.
• New MongoDB sink #1981 . Thanks @mguludag.
• New QTextEdit and QPlainTextEdit sinks #1986. Thanks @mguludag.

Software Architecture with C++, Book Review

by Bartlomiej Filipek

In April, we got a new book - from two Polish authors - Piotr and Adrian - on C++ Software Architecture. This one is fascinating and refreshing. While it won’t teach you all the latest C++ features or low-level tricks in our favorite language, it will move you to a higher level with architecture, building, patterns, design, and development for the cloud.

Let’s see what’s inside.