The deadline for Main Program submissions has passed with a near-record number of submissions!
The conference organizers are grateful for, and excited about, the almost-two-hundred submissions that we received. We are excited both by the quality of the submissions and by the fact that that the vast majority of submissions were for onsite presentations.
Our Program Committee is currently hard at work reviewing and rating each submission and we know that we’ll have an amazing program for both onsite and online attendees in Aurora in October. As you know, we’ve announced that Bjarne will be our opening keynote onsite. (We are anxious to make our next onsite keynote announcement but that isn’t quite ready yet.)
A peek behind the curtain for those of you that have not been part of the submission/review process: Each submission receives written evaluations by several members of the CppCon Program Committee. There are two goals of each committee member as they draft these evaluations. The most obvious is to select the best possible program for CppCon attendees. On the one hand, this is easy because with so many high-quality submissions, creating a great program comes out pretty naturally, but on the other hand, it is very hard because we know that our audience has come to have great expectations of a CppCon program, not just that every individual sessions is of high quality, but that the program as a whole provides coverage of the topics that matter to our attendees, and also because the competition is fierce. The quality of the submissions that we don’t accept is getting higher every year.
Which leads us to the second goal of members as they draft their evaluations. The evaluations are, of course, shared with the submitters, so each evaluation should also contain constructive advice on how to improve the submission. For submissions that are accepted, this leads to an even better program for attendees. For submissions that are not accepted, this leads to better submissions to future programs (both at CppCon and other conferences).
Our feeling is that all submissions, from the weakest to the strongest, can be improved in some way and comments that we’ve received from submitters (both those that have been accepted and those that have not) let us know that submitters appreciate thoughtful, constructive comments.
Creating multiple, thoughtful evaluations on almost two-hundred submissions touching on virtually every topic of C++ and software design in less than a month is a mammoth task, but we know that the CppCon 2021 Program that you’ll be seeing in Aurora and/or online, will be something that we as organizers, the Program Committee, and the presenters, will be proud to present.
Read about all the offered classes on the 
Most of the classes feature two days (onsite) or three days (online) of class instruction and all feature hands-on opportunities to improve your programming skills.
CppCon 2021 will kick off on Monday, October 25 with Bjarne Stroustrup delivering the opening keynote live in person in Aurora, Colorado, USA. This is Stroustrup’s first in-person talk in North America since C++20 was completed, just before the pandemic lockdowns began. His talk connects C++’s roots with all the things that make C++20 a historic milestone – it’s not only the biggest release of C++ in a decade, but also the first edition of Standard C++ ever that is “D&E-complete,”containing all of the features (except only unified function call syntax) that Stroustrup described a quarter-century ago in 
C++20: Reaching for the Aims of C++
Early Bird Registration is 
Emery Berger is a Professor in the College of Information and Computer Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he co-directs the PLASMA @ UMass lab. To fully appreciate the work that Emery has done and the academic honors that he’s received, you really need to read 
Each session aims to present time-tested guidelines that are aligned with mainstream C++ and broadly useful across many industries. This accounts for the lack of any Back to Basics sessions on Concepts, Coroutines, or Modules — all big topics in the zeitgeist this year, but also topics where best practices are still hazy and implementations are still immature. Attendees seeking information on cutting-edge features of C++20 will find plenty of what they seek in CppCon 2020’s main conference program.
Here’s a sneak peek at this year’s Back to Basics lineup. The precise order of these sessions hasn’t been determined as of this post; we may shuffle them up a bit. We’ve also reserved space on Friday for a “closing track keynote” which has yet to be announced.
Thursday, 2020-09-17
Most of us value the experience of having casual conversations with smart, knowledgeable C++ programmers, particularly when a new version of Standard C++ is out. In a year in which these opportunities have been severely reduced by a combination of working at home and the cancellation of in-person events such as conferences and user group meetings, we appreciate the in-person experience all the more. CppCon, one of the best C++ in-person experiences of the year, is needed this year more than ever and we are excited to be bringing it to you.
Of course, we can only do this if it is safe to do so. We are monitoring the situation closely and will hold the event only if it is safe to do so and only in a manner that is safe. We are working very closely with our venue, the Gaylord Rockies, in planning the event. They have selected Vanderbilt University Medical Center as their 
Because we must cap our attendance (we don’t yet have an exact number, we are still working that out), we are looking at the possibility, for the first time with CppCon, of selling out the conference. If you’d like to attend, register as soon as possible. You may be concerned about registering and then discovering that you can’t attend. This is understandable, so we are offering a no-questions-asked, complete refund until thirty days before the conference, August 14th. (At that point, we need to make certain financial commitments to our vendors, but if you need to cancel after that, we’ll apply your 2020 fee to provide a free registration for CppCon 2021.)
