Author: Bret Brown

Announcing the CppCon 2026 Tracks

Posted on by Bret Brown

CppCon continues to grow as a conference that reflects the full breadth of modern C++ practice. One of the ways we support that breadth is through dedicated tracks. These tracks highlight areas of sustained interest in the community and create space for deeper, more focused conversations.

Tracks are a distinct aspect of CppCon. They allow speakers to target specific audiences and give attendees a way to engage more deeply with topics that matter to them. Just as importantly, they make room for material that might not otherwise surface in a general program, strengthening the overall conference.

For 2026, we are continuing with all of last year’s tracks:

Below is a closer look at each track and the role it plays within the program.

Back to Basics

The Back to Basics track focuses on teaching and reinforcing the fundamentals of C++. Talks in this track emphasize clear explanations of core language and library features, presented from first principles so that attendees can build a strong mental model.

These sessions are technical, but intentionally structured to be approachable. They are valuable for developers at all levels, whether learning a topic for the first time or revisiting it with greater depth and precision.

Example talks from CppCon 2025:

Software Design

The Software Design track centers on how we structure and evolve software systems. It focuses on managing complexity through abstraction, reducing coupling, and building systems that are maintainable and adaptable over time.

Topics often include architectural patterns, design techniques across paradigms, and lessons learned from real-world systems. This track reflects the idea that 

design decisions often have a greater long-term impact than low-level implementation details.

Example talks from CppCon 2025:

Tooling & Ecosystem

The Tooling & Ecosystem track explores both the tools used to build C++ software and the broader ecosystem that supports modern development. This includes compilers, build systems, debuggers, static analysis, IDEs, and libraries, as well as package management and integration with other platforms.

Alongside deep dives into specific tools, this track also covers how C++ fits into larger software environments. Topics may include dependency management, interoperability, and developer workflows, with an emphasis on practical experience and improving how C++ is developed and delivered in real-world settings.

Example talks from CppCon 2025:

Embedded

The Embedded track showcases how C++ is used in constrained and hardware-adjacent environments. Sessions explore performance, memory efficiency, determinism, and reliability—key concerns in systems where resources are limited and correctness is paramount. The track also highlights tools and techniques for developing safety-critical applications, including machine controllers and medical devices.

Attendees can expect to learn practical approaches for writing efficient low-level code while applying modern C++ abstractions thoughtfully and effectively.

Example talks from CppCon 2025:

Robotics & AI

The Robotics & AI track focuses on real-world systems that combine C++ with robotics, autonomy, and machine learning. Unlike academic venues, the emphasis is on practitioner experience, applied techniques, and lessons learned in production systems.

Topics may include motion planning, perception systems, simulation, and performance-critical AI infrastructure, all grounded in practical use of C++.

Example talks from CppCon 2025:

Scientific Computing

The Scientific Computing track covers high-performance and numerically intensive applications. Talks often address parallelism, numerical methods, large-scale data processing, and efficient use of modern hardware.

This is where C++ is applied to demanding computational workloads, from simulation to optimization and beyond.

Example talks from CppCon 2025:

Game Development

The Game Development track explores how C++ is used to build high-performance, real-time interactive systems. Many of the techniques discussed in this track have broader applicability to any system where responsiveness and performance are critical.

Game development is one of the largest users of C++. It faces some tough engineering challenges that only C++ can solve, such as delivering a rendered frame in 16 milliseconds, synchronizing state across the internet for multiplayer games, accommodating the ever-changing brief of the game designer, and so on.

We all know that GameDev engineering does things a little differently, and this is the place to share the knowledge that the whole C++ community can benefit from. Topics of interest include:

  • Patterns in game development
  • Building engines
  • Build systems
  • Profiling and optimizing
  • Accommodating hardware constraints
  • Interacting with the C++ Standard
  • Debugging interactive programs
  • GPU programming
  • Case studies and post-mortems
  • …
  • Oh yes, and AI

Example talks from previous CppCon years:

This is a great opportunity to network with your peers from the international GameDev engineering community. If you have done anything at all interesting, we all want to hear about it.

Business & Career

The Business & Career track focuses on the professional side of working with C++. It includes topics such as team organization, leadership, career growth, and the role of C++ within industry.

This track broadens the scope of the conference by addressing how technical work connects to business outcomes and personal development.

Example talks from CppCon 2025:

Submit to CppCon 2026

If you are considering submitting a talk, we encourage you to think about how your proposal might fit into one or more of these tracks. When submitting, you can indicate which tracks are relevant to your talk.

👉 Submit your proposal here: https://cppcon.org/submissions

Tracks help us surface ideas, experiences, and communities that deserve focused attention. We are excited for what you bring to CppCon 2026!

CppCon 2026 – Call for Submissions

Posted on by Bret Brown

CppCon is the annual, week-long (September 12th-18th, 2026) face-to-face gathering for the entire C++ community. The conference Main Program consists of five days of several concurrent tracks of sixty-minute sessions.

This conference is organized by the C++ Community for the C++ Community. We want the whole community to be represented. We especially encourage those who identify as coming from an underrepresented community to apply to present and to be present. Presenting a talk is not limited to previous presenters or previous attendees and first-time speakers are very welcome to submit.

This year’s edition of CppCon will be onsite at the Gaylord Rockies in Aurora, Colorado, USA.

Have you learned something interesting about C++, maybe a new technique possible in C++20/23/26? Or perhaps you have implemented something cool, maybe a new C++ library? Or perhaps have an idea for a future language or library feature that you want to advocate for? If so, consider sharing it with other C++ enthusiasts by giving a Main Program talk at CppCon 2026.

While CppCon is a conference about C++, talks about other programming languages are in scope for CppCon 2026 as long as they are of interest to C++ developers and tied to C++ evolution and are not primarily talks about rewriting entire C++ codebases in something other than C++. For example, a talk on How to migrate your C++ code to Haskell is off-topic and will not be considered, but a talk on What C++ Programmers Can Learn from Swift, or What Rust Procedural Macros Might Look Like in C++, or Results of Hylo/Carbon/Circle Experiments That Could Be Incorporated Into ISO C++ Evolution are on-topic and will be considered.

The submission deadline is May 17, with decisions sent by June 26.

To promote impartial reviews, CppCon uses a process in which submitters and reviewers are unaware of one anothers identities. When submitting, please avoid statements in your title, abstract, and outline that might reveal who you are. See examples on the Submissions page.

We plan to have all of the same tracks as last year (Back to Basics, Software Design, Tooling, Embedded, Robotics & AI, Scientific Computing, GameDev, and Business & Career track). If you plan to submit to one or more of these tracks, please indicate in your submission which track(s) you’d expect your talk to fit into by ticking the appropriate checkbox. Of course, you are also welcome to submit a talk to the main program that does not fit into any of these tracks. If you have new ideas for tracks or special interest areas to better serve the C++ community, please get in touch with the program committee directly with your thoughts.

For talk topic ideas, possible formats, submission instructions and valuable advice on how to make the best possible submission, see the Submissions page.

Also, if you are an author, our Call for Authors for CppCon 2026 has already been posted here. This is a great opportunity to bring more attention to your book and interact with the C++ community.

Note: Calls for Lightning Talks and Open Content sessions will be made later this summer. The deadline for these is the conference itself.

CppCon 2024 Call for Submissions – Tooling Track

Posted on by Bret Brown

The CppCon Tooling Track is open for submissions!

Because C++ includes much more than the language itself, CppCon is excited to offer a Tooling Track at CppCon 2024! The Tooling Track is an explicit place to make room for talks about C++ tools and the C++ ecosystem.

Why give tooling talks? The C++ community wants and needs them! Users want to hear the best and latest about a wide range of tooling-related topics, including:

  • Managing dependencies
  • Improving build times
  • Debugging their projects
  • Enhancing their continuous integration enrollments
  • Configuring their build systems
  • Mastering their IDEs and editors
  • Interoperation with other languages
  • Understanding their compilation toolchains

What should the talks be about? More or less, if it’s a talk for C++ engineers but not about software theory or the C++ language itself, it’s probably a talk about the C++ ecosystem, and therefore is welcome in the CppCon Tooling Track.

Who should submit? You! Previous talks from the perspectives of thoughtful users have been very well-reviewed and accepted in the past.

Of course, the Tooling Track is a place for industry experts and maintainers of widely adopted C++ tools as well. It is an excellent way for C++ tool vendors and advocates to raise awareness for the projects they are excited to share. CppCon is a great opportunity to get out from behind the ticket trackers and meet face-to-face with current and potential end users!

If you would like to submit a talk to the CppCon 2024 Tooling Track, follow the instructions at the wider CppCon 2024 Call for Submissions and be sure to mark Tooling as a target track.

If you would like to know more about the CppCon talk submission process or if you would like helpful tips for submitters, see the Main Program Submissions page. Also feel free to email tooling_track@cppcon.org or submission-advice@cppcon.org with any questions or concerns you may have.

If you are interested in helping organize the CppCon Tooling Track, please contact tooling_track@cppcon.org.