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Pattern-Oriented Software Architectures for Concurrent and Networked Software -- Doug Schmidt

By Blog Staff | Jan 22, 2013 10:25 AM | Tags: intermediate

A video preview is available for Doug Schmidt's upcoming free MOOC with Vanderbilt University via Coursera:

Pattern-Oriented Software Architectures for Concurrent and Networked Software

Next session: Starts March 4 (8 weeks long)

Workload: 4-6 hours/week

Douglas C. Schmidt is a Professor of Computer Science, Associate Chair of the Computer Science and Engineering program, and a Senior Researcher at the Institute for Software Integrated Systems, all at Vanderbilt University. He has also been the Chief Technology Officer for the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, where he was responsible for directing the technical vision and strategic R&D investments.

C++ developers will know of Doug particularly because of his widely-acclaimed ACE and related libraries.

We asked Doug to provide an overview in his own words of what you can expect to see in the course and how it relates to C++11 in particular:

After a short ~45 minute intro to the topics covered in the course, the rest of the videos are divided into the following sections:

  • [~3 hours] Intro to concurrency and networking, which provides background info at the OS and middleware levels.  This part focuses on concepts and is largely language-neutral.
  • [~7 hours] Intro to patterns and frameworks, which provides coverage of pattern-oriented software architecture, with an emphasis on concurrent and networked software.  Small C++ and Java examples are shown throughout, though the main focus of this section is more on design techniques rather than programming, per se.
  • [~6 hours] Applying patterns and frameworks to develop concurrent and networked software, which examines *lots* of C++ code.  A high-performance HTTP web server is used as a running example to illustrate patterns and frameworks in practice.  80-90% of the focus is on C++ here, with some examples showing how you can do similar types of things in Java to demonstrate the generality of pattern and framework techniques.
  • [~3 hours] An appendix that provides an overview of C++ (including C++11 features), a case study of fundamental "Gang of Four" patterns that aren't directly related to concurrent and networked software, and other background information that may be of interest to some course participants.

C++11 Rocks: Visual Studio 2012 Edition -- Alex Korban

By Blog Staff | Jan 18, 2013 05:24 PM | Tags: intermediate basics

Alex Korban has written a nice e-book that covers the parts of C++11 available in Visual Studio, including documenting limitations and bugs while still focusing on how using the C++11 features makes code cleaner, safer, and faster into the bargain.

The Visual Studio 2012 edition is now in beta. See the table of contents for what's covered, and a free sample to check out the style.

C++11 Rocks: Visual Studio 2012 Edition

by Alex Korban

Highlights from the description:

Visual Studio 2012 gives you the opportunity to use C++11 features to make your code significantly cleaner and easier to read, and to improve performance as well.

But which features are there? Are they ready for use in production code? ... 

You can master the C++11 features in VS2012 with this book. It’s laser focused on C++11, Visual Studio 2012, and nothing else. You’ll quickly get in-depth knowledge of the stuff you need to know.

You’ll learn easily with tons of examples. I spent a lot of time researching and testing, and as a result the book details many C++11 bugs and cases of non-standard behavior in Visual Studio.

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HPX (High Performance ParalleX) 0.9.5 Released

By Eric Niebler | Jan 17, 2013 12:44 PM | Tags: intermediate advanced

The High Performance ParalleX (HPX) library has produced its 0.9.5 release. Here's a snippet about HPX from its release announcement.

HPX 0.9.5 Released

[...] HPX (High Performance ParalleX) is a general C++ runtime system for parallel and distributed applications of any scale. It is the first freely available, open source, feature-complete, modular, and performance oriented implementation of the ParalleX execution model. HPX is targeted at conventional architectures and, currently, Linux based systems, such as SMP nodes and conventional clusters. [...]

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C++ Training at All Levels -- Leor Zolman

By Blog Staff | Jan 16, 2013 05:54 PM | Tags: intermediate basics advanced

On-Site C++ Training at All Levels

by industry veteran Leor Zolman

 

Note: For a limited time, any 4- or 5-day training includes the C++11 Overview.

 

Our C++ and C seminars have been designed by some of the best-known, most effective C++ educators practicing today. In addition to materials created by Leor our C++ training repertoire features courses licensed from and supported by industry leaders Dan Saks and Stephen C. Dewhurst.

A Whirlwind Overview of C++11 (1/2-day, author: Leor Zolman)

Advanced C++  (Author: Stephen C. Dewhurst)

Effective C++ (3-, 4- and 5-day versions of courseware by Scott Meyers based on his books)

An Effective Introduction to the Standard Template Library (STL) (Author: Scott Meyers)

C++ for Non-C Programmers (Author: Leor Zolman)

C++ and Object-Oriented Programming (a.k.a. C++ for C Programmers). (Author: Dan Saks)

A sample unit of any course is available upon request.

Contact us today for more information or to schedule an on-site training at your location!

Update from the Ranges Study Group

By Eric Niebler | Jan 14, 2013 11:04 AM | Tags: intermediate experimental

In December, we announced the opening of the SG9 (Ranges) mailing list. Since then, the activity on it has been nothing short of amazing, and the discussion is of a markedly high quality. Ranges promise a improvement in usability, power, and safety for the STL. If you have ever wanted to see how the C++ Standardization Committee crafts the future of C++, sidle on over to the Ranges group and learn about the future of the STL from many of the people who have helped shape it since its inception. Watch tomorrow's C++ take shape today, and maybe help shape it yourself.

Read the list archives here, or sign up to get the blow-by-blow here.

P.S. You can start using (one implementation of) Ranges today over at Boost (see Boost.Range's docs).

When does a constexpr function get evaluated at compile time? -- StackOverflow

By Blog Staff | Jan 11, 2013 10:14 AM | Tags: intermediate basics

Here's a common question about constexpr...

A suggestion: As of this writing the more correct and useful (and simpler) answer K-ballo's, which was not selected as best -- please upvote K-ballo and help approve the pending edit that improves it. Thanks.

When does a constexpr function get evaluated at compile time?

Since it is possible that a function declared as constexpr can be called during run-time, under which criteria does the compiler decide whether to compute it at compile-time or during runtime?

 

template<typename base_t, typename expo_t>
constexpr base_t POW(base_t base, expo_t expo)
{
    return (expo != 0 )? base * POW(base, expo -1) : 1;
}

int main(int argc, char** argv)
{
    int i = 0;
    std::cin >> i;
    std::cout << POW(i, 2) << std::endl;
    return 0;
}

 

In this case, i is unknown at compile-time, which is probably the reason why the compiler treats POW() as a regular function which is called at runtime. This dynamic however, as convenient as it may appear to be, has some impractical implications. For instance, could there be a case where I would like the compiler to compute a constexpr function during compile-time, where the compiler decides to treat it as a normal function instead, when it would have worked during compile-time as well? Are there any known common pitfalls?

Quick Q: Is it still bad practice to return a vector from a function?

By Blog Staff | Jan 11, 2013 10:04 AM | Tags: intermediate basics

 

Here's another FAQ about modern C++11 style, and how C++11 is simpler than classic C++, including that this affects how we design our interfaces to make them simpler and easier to read and use.

However, be sure to read through the comments, because they cover several considerations including when it's safe to start relying on the simpler C++11 semantics as you migrate a code base from C++98 to C++11 and may still have to support C++98 clients for a while.

In C++, is it still bad practice to return a vector from a function?

Short version: It's common to return large objects—such as vectors/arrays—in many programming languages. Is this style now acceptable in C++0x if the class has a move constructor, or do C++ programmers consider it weird/ugly/abomination?

Long version: In C++0x is this still considered bad form?

std::vector<std::string> BuildLargeVector();

...

std::vector<std::string> v = BuildLargeVector();

 

[...]

C++ Concurrency - Herb Sutter

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.

Preconditions, Part 1 -- Andrzej KrzemieĊ„ski

By Blog Staff | Jan 7, 2013 11:43 AM | Tags: intermediate

On preconditions, and their compile time enforcement with static_assert and a dash of regex.

Preconditions, Part 1

by Andrzej Krzemieński

In this post, I want to share my thoughts about the notion of precondition. In “Design by Contract” philosophy, preconditions are always mentioned along postconditions and invariants, and in the context of OO design. In this post I focus only on preconditions and not necessarily related to any class. For instance, the following function specifies a precondition on its argument:

double sqrt(double x);

// precondition: x >= 0

Note that the function specifies the precondition even though there is no language feature for this purpose (at least in C++). A precondition is a “concept” or an “idea” rather than a language feature. This is the kind of preconditions that this post is about.

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