I’m very pleased to announce that Dan Saks will be one of our keynotes this year! Dan is one of the world’s leading experts on the C and C++ programming languages and their use in developing embedded systems.

He is the president of Saks & Associates, which offers training and consulting in C, C++ and embedded programming. Dan has previously served as secretary of the ANSI and ISO C++ Standards committees and as a member of the ANSI C Standards committee.

Dan used to write the “Programming Pointers” column for embedded.com. He has also written for numerous publications including The C/C++ Users Journal, The C++ Report, The Journal of C Language Translation, Software Development, Embedded Systems Design and Dr. Dobb’s Journal. With Thomas Plum, he wrote C++ Programming Guidelines, which won a 1992 Computer Language Magazine Productivity Award. He has presented at conferences such as Software Development and Embedded Systems. More recently, he contributed to the CERT Secure C Coding Standard and the CERT Secure C++ Coding Standard.

Dan’s keynote, extern “C”: Talking to C Programmers About C++, will be about migrating C code (and C programmers) to modern C++:

Most of us have heard this story. We’ve even told it ourselves…

C++ is nearly all of C, plus a whole lot more. Migrating code from C to C++ is pretty easy. Moreover, the migration itself can yield immediate benefits by exposing questionable type conversions that can be sources of latent bugs. After migration, the code performs as well in C++ as in the original C. And now that it’s C++, you have ready access to a wealth of advanced features you can (but don’t have to) use to implement enhancements.

Who wouldn’t want that? Legions of C programmers, apparently.

Despite the success of C++ in numerous application domains, C remains considerably more popular, especially in embedded, automotive, and aerospace applications. In many cases, projects resist C++ because their managers think the risks outweigh the benefits. In other cases, the resistance comes from programmers who persist in believing bad things about C++, even when those things aren’t true.

What can the C++ community do to overcome this resistance? Drawing on lessons from cognitive science, linguistics and psychology, and (of course) computer science, this talk offers suggestions about how to make the case for C++ more persuasive to C programmers.

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We’ve got some program previews from three tracks today:

Here’s some of our content on embedded programming:

• Implementing a Modern C++ MQTT Client for Embedded Devices, Michael Caisse
• Control Freak++: Writing an Embedded RTPS Library in Modern C++, Jackie Kay

We’ve also got a lot of great talks about the upcoming Coroutines TS:

• An Introduction to C++ Coroutines, James McNellis
• C++ Coroutines: Under the Covers, Gor Nishanov

And finally, some talks about accelerator and GPU programming:

• Towards Heterogeneous Programming in C++, Gordon Brown
• Bringing Clang and C++ to GPUs: An Open-Source, CUDA-Compatible GPU C++ Compiler, Justin Lebar

Come join us at CppCon in Bellevue this September – registration is still open!

— Bryce Adelstein Lelbach

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We have an exciting week ahead of us as we start announcing the CppCon 2016 program. The full program will be published next Sunday. Until then, we’ll broadcast a handful of talks each day. Make sure to check tomorrow’s preview – we’ll reveal one of the keynotes!

Let’s start off with some sessions about generic algorithms in the standard library:

• Regular Expressions in C++, Present and Future, Tim Shen
• STL Algorithms – Why You Should Use Them, and How to Write Your Own, Marshall Clow
• The C++17 Parallel Algorithms Library and Beyond, Bryce Adelstein Lelbach
• std::accumulate(): Exploring an Algorithmic Empire, Ben Deane

We also have a few talks about exceptions to share:

• Out of Memory? Business as Usual: Examining Applications That Do Not Terminate on std::bad_alloc, Sergey Zubkov
• The Exception Situation, Patrice Roy

The gaming community has always been a part of CppCon, and this year is no exception. Here’s some of the game development content that you’ll see at CppCon this year:

• Exploring Modern C++ Game Development with Unreal Engine 4, Marcus R. Brown
• The MAME (Multi-Arcade Machine Emulator) Story: From C to Modern C++, Miodrag Milanović
• Rainbow Six Siege: Quest for Performance, Nicolas Fleury

If you want to come join us for CppCon 2016, there’s still time to register!

— Bryce Adelstein Lelbach

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We have a program! We received over 175 submissions for CppCon this year, and we accepted about 100 of them. In a few days, we’ll post the full six-track schedule. Until then, here’s a preview of some excellent talks about data structures:

• High Performance Code 201: Hybrid Data Structures, Chandler Carruth
• Colonies, Performance and Why You Should Care, Matt Bentley
• The Details of std::string at Facebook, Nicholas Ormrod
• tuple<>: What’s New, and How it Works, Stephan T. Lavavej
• variant<>: Past, Present and Future, David Sankel

If you want to come join us for CppCon 2016, there’s still time to register!

— Bryce Adelstein Lelbach

Continue reading →

Registration is now open for CppCon 2016 to be held September 18-23, 2016 at the Meydenbauer Center in Bellevue, Washington, USA.

CppCon is the annual, week-long face-to-face gathering for the entire C++ community. The conference is organized by the C++ community for the community. You will enjoy inspirational talks and a friendly atmosphere designed to help attendees learn from each other, meet interesting people, and generally have a stimulating experience. Taking place this year in the beautiful Seattle neighborhood and including multiple diverse tracks, the conference will appeal to anyone from C++ novices to experts.

What you can expect at CppCon:

• Pre-conference classes: Choose from six exciting classes:
  • The C++ Core Guidelines with Kate Gregory
  • Concurrent Thinking in C++ with Anthony Williams
  • Crafting Embedded Software in C++ with Dan Saks
  • Modernizing your C++ with Michael Caisse
  • Programming with Qt/Widgets with Giuseppe D’Angelo
  • Using C++ for Low-Latency Systems with Patrice Roy
• Field trip to Living Computer Museum: Join us Sunday afternoon before registration for a chance to meet other attendees and interact with historic hardware.
• Invited talks and panels: Expect a week full of insight from some of the world’s leading experts in C++. Still have questions? Ask them at one of CppCon’s panels featuring those at the cutting edge of the language.
• Presentations by the C++ community: What do embedded systems, game development, high frequency trading, and particle accelerators have in common? C++, of course! Expect talks from a broad range of domains experts focused on practical C++ techniques, libraries, and tools.
• Lightning talks: Get informed at a fast pace during special sessions of short, less formal talks. Never presented at a conference before? This is your chance to share your thoughts on a C++-related topic in an informal setting.
• Evening events and “unconference” time: Relax, socialize, or start an impromptu coding session.

CppCon’s goal is to encourage the best use of C++ while preserving the diversity of viewpoints and experiences. The conference is a project of the Standard C++ Foundation, a not-for-profit organization whose purpose is to support the C++ software developer community and promote the understanding and use of modern, standard C++ on all compilers and platforms.

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.