One of the big surprises last year at CppCon was the tremendous response to the lightning talks. People kept submitting them, and we just kept adding sessions. This year, we’re adding those sessions in advance as the submissions come in, so that you can plan to attend. (And yes, you can still submit a talk. We have time slots we can hold more lightning talk sessions in.) We’ve just added two more sessions – Tuesday lunch and Wednesday morning – to accommodate the submissions already received. You’ll see the lightning talk sessions in yellow on the program. The abstract is vague, and it’s not going to get less vague. You don’t know precisely what you’re going to get until you show up.

What roughly will you get? A number of different talks – some funny, some very technical, some personal, some inspirational, some that will make your grateful you have the job you do and not the speaker’s job. Some will be 5 minutes long and some 15 minutes long. A few might be followups to something that’s already happened. Others might be a way to invite you to something that hasn’t happened yet. Some will be the very first public speaking that speaker has ever done, and some will be a chance to let your hair down with a speaker you’ve seen being serious many times before. Some might not interest you, but that’s ok – they’re short, you can be bored for 5 or 15 minutes, and then there will be a different one. They’re little bite size goodies, and for many of us they were a very enjoyable highlight of the conference. Add some to your schedule now, and be prepared to get up a little early or stay on site a little late to get the full benefit of your time here!

Last year’s CppCon brought together ISO Standard Committee members and game developers to discuss how standard C++ could evolve to better support C++. This resulted in the formation of Study Group 14: Game Dev and Low Latency at the ISO meeting in Lenexa this spring. The SG14 charter is “improving C++ for Low Latency, real time requirements, and performance/efficiency especially for Games, Financial/Banking, and Simulations.”

Some papers have already been discussed by the Study Group, but the first formal meeting of SG14 will be hosted by CppCon this year on Wednesday, September 23rd. This one-day meeting is open to anyone interested, but requires a separate registration (it isn’t covered by a regular conference registration). A second meeting is already set up on March 14-18 2016 at GDC 2015 hosted by Sony (thank you, Sony). The meeting will be run by Michael Wong, the SG14 chair.

For more information on SG14, the meeting, and how best to register for it, please read Michael’s blog post about it.