News

CppCon 2022 Call for Submissions

Posted on by Daisy Hollman

CppCon is the annual, week-long (September 11th-16th, 2022) face-to-face (and now also online) 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.

We hope that everyone can join us onsite, but we know that some people cannot join us in Aurora this September. Leveraging our experience of serving the global C++ community online in the last two years and our many years of providing an unmatched in-person experience, this year’s CppCon will again be a hybrid conference with some presenters and attendees onsite in Aurora, Colorado, and some presenters and attendees online.

We are looking for presenters who can present in person and also for presenters who will be presenting remotely (presenter teams welcome). Submitters can apply for onsite, online or both. We understand that a submission is not a commitment and that situations may change. We are prepared to respond appropriately to changing situations that affect your availability. Our goal is always to present the best possible program to attendees, both onsite and online, and we look forward to working with you to achieve this.

Have you learned something interesting about C++, maybe a new technique possible in C++17/20/23? 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 regular program talk at CppCon 2022.

The submissions deadline is June 24th, with decisions sent by July 31st.

To facilitate a double-blind review process, please avoid statements in your abstract that remove all uncertainty about who you are. See examples on the Submissions page.

In addition to the dedicated Back to Basics Track, Embedded Track, Scientific Computing Track, Software Design Track, and Tooling Track, we are looking for people with new ideas for tracks or specialities to better serve the C++ community.

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

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

Diversity and Inclusion at CppCon 2022

Posted on by Daisy Hollman

One of the fundamental missions of the Standard C++ Foundation is to “support the C++ software developer community.” Support starts with ensuring that everyone feels welcome in our community, and as the leadership of the largest community gathering of the year, we take the opportunity to build a more diverse and inclusive community very seriously and try to expand it every year. Here are the new, expanded, and continuing initiatives currently planned, aimed at making everyone feel welcome at CppCon 2022.

  • (NEW) Double-blind review process: Creating a program that is as diverse as possible has always been a priority at CppCon. Each year, the Program Committee aims to create the best conference we can, and a big part of that process is obtaining the most comprehensive and accurate set of reviews for each talk submitted. Our goal is to reduce unconscious bias in the review process, and increase the diversity of submissions. Studies have shown that double-blind review processes have these effects, so this year the Program Committee will be reviewing the abstracts and outlines of submissions without the knowledge of the submitter’s names. To enable this, we will be asking presenters to take steps to anonymize their abstracts.
  • (EXPANDED) New tracks, new track chairs: Having more focused tracks, centered around more specific areas of expertise, is an important part of creating a diverse and inclusive conference. This may be counterintuitive, but focused tracks actually enable speaking opportunities for junior developers: They may not have enough experience with topics of broad appeal, but may still have the domain-specific expertise to submit talks that may be interesting to a significant subset of attendees. This year, in addition to the existing Embedded, Back to Basics, and Software Design tracks, we are adding Tooling and Scientific Computing tracks. If your talk is submitted to a track, your track chair will be happy to provide additional consultation on both your abstract and your talk. Reach out to them!
  • Supporting new speakers: CppCon offers mentoring for newer speakers. As part of the talk submissions process, we provide the option for one-on-one mentoring by experienced speakers. As mentioned above, part of the responsibility of track chairs is to provide subject-matter-specific mentoring to new speakers submitting to their tracks. If you are interested in this program, just mark it in your talk submission form.
  • (EXPANDED) Diversity dinner, now also a workshop: This year, CppCon’s diversity dinner will be expanded to include a workshop to discuss processes, experiences, and paths forward for improving diversity and inclusion in the C++ community. Attendees are encouraged to submit 10-20 minute talks on these topics through a separate submission process.
  • Women in C++ brunch: Building on the success of last year’s Women in C++ dinner, we’re hosting a women’s brunch for this year’s CppCon. Though we’ve always included women in general diversity initiatives at CppCon in the past, as more women have been attending CppCon we want to provide women with specific opportunities to network with others who face similar challenges. The brunch is intended to be an open, welcoming, casual environment for attendees to discuss diversity issues specific to women in C++.
  • Hybrid on-line and in-person conference: We recognize that not everyone’s life circumstances allow them to take a week out of their life to attend a conference in person. This year, CppCon will again facilitate on-line participation for speakers and attendees, with the goal of including those who can’t attend or speak in person. We’re employing a number of emerging technologies to engage with online participants, aimed at making them feel welcome as part of the community as much as possible.
  • Subsidized diversity tickets: CppCon sponsors a number of subsidized on-line and in-person attendance tickets for people from underrepresented groups in C++. More details about this year’s program, including how to apply, will be announced soon.
  • Code of Conduct: CppCon’s Code of Conduct (CoC) includes a dedicated CoC report handling team and CoC training for all conference volunteers before each event. CppCon publishes annual CoC transparency reports after each conference, starting with the CppCon 2021 CoC transparency report.
  • Professional live captioning for keynotes and large sessions: Professional-quality live captioning is expensive, but is important to us because it helps many attendees better follow the live program—not only attendees who are deaf or hard of hearing, but also the many non-native English speakers in the audience.
  • Gender neutral restrooms: Every year, at least one restroom at the venue gets designated as gender neutral to accommodate attendees who may not feel comfortable in either the men’s or the women’s restrooms.
  • Pronouns on name tags: While registering, attendees will be offered the option to add their preferred pronouns to their conference badge.
  • Accessible venue and stages: All talks are held at the conference hotel, which offers wheelchair accessible guest rooms, and wheelchair accessible seating and stage access in meeting rooms. See our accessibility section for more details.
  • Quiet room: We know that conferences and large gatherings can be stressful for some attendees, especially since the isolation caused by the pandemic. Being inclusive means making sure attendees have ways to manage that stress. We provide quiet room space for attendees to relax and recharge; see our quiet room section for more details.
  • Child care: Parenting responsibilities and attending a technical conference are a challenge to mix. CppCon wants to help attendees with children to be able to focus on the conference experience, secure in the knowledge that their children are in a safe and secure environment. See our child care section for more details.
  • (NEW) Feedback: We’ve set up a new email address, diversity@cppcon.org, to work on better understanding people’s reasons for being unable to attend CppCon in the past. We’re working on a survey process to learn more about how we can  make CppCon as diverse and inclusive as possible.

Diversity and inclusion are a priority at CppCon, and we are dedicated to deepening and expanding our support for a diverse and inclusive environment. We look forward to your feedback, and are excited to see many of you—either online or in person—in September at CppCon 2022!


Daisy Hollman, Program Chair
On behalf of the CppCon 2022 organizing committee

CppCon 2021 Code of Conduct Transparency Report

Posted on by cppcon

The following summary is intended to help the community understand what kind of Code of Conduct (CoC) incidents we received reports about in the year since previous conference, and how the CppCon organizers responded.

Note: This year we also handled an issue concerning a past serious crime that happened outside CppCon. See the transparency report published separately regarding this incident, which also announced that the board developed and published a set of priorities we will follow for such situations in the future, “Ensuring a Safe and Welcoming Learning Environment at CppCon.”

Overview

Again at CppCon 2021, staff and volunteers participated in CoC training prior to the conference.

At CppCon 2021, we received four reports of potential CoC violations, which were resolved during the conference. Another report was received after the conference ended, and was addressed within a few days of receipt.

Before CppCon 2021, CppCon organizers were notified of past misconduct outside CppCon by a CppCon organizer. This matter was addressed by restrictions imposed before the conference, and additional restrictions imposed for future conferences; see above.

Summary of reported incidents at CppCon

At CppCon 2021:

  • In two online sessions’ chats, an attendee anonymously posted provocative and unfriendly commentary. They were warned to use their full name, and to keep comments professional. Attendees were reminded before the start of the following day to show their full name on Zoom and Discord, otherwise access will be removed for the rest of the event. — For CppCon 2022, attendees will be reminded at registration time that they are expected to use their real names.
  • In an online session’s chat, an attendee typed a comment that appeared to be criticizing the session’s speaker. After reviewing the context, the team decided the comment was responding to a prior humorous chat comment, not the speaker. The team reassured the reporter with an explanation of the message. The reporter was reassured.
  • A speaker made a joke referring to Nazis. The speaker was notified that it made an audience member uncomfortable and was asked to take this into account in the future. — Upon post-conference review, the reference did not appear to be offensive/disrespectful. For CppCon 2022 the CoC will clarify that the CoC is not intended to try to control how people of diverse backgrounds express themselves unless clearly offensive/disrespectful. (Done on 2022-01-04)
  • A conference staff member introduced another staff member to speakers in a belittling manner. The team used this as an educational opportunity to talk to the staff member, who responded positively.
  • An attendee made a comment on another attendee’s appearance, and appeared to comment on different expectations for speakers who are women. They were informed that this is not appropriate. They acknowledged the error and apologized. The team agreed to relay the apology to the impacted person if the impacted person wished to receive it.

Call for Proposals for CppCon Academy 2022 Classes

Posted on by cppcon

CppCon Academy is asking for instructors to submit proposals for pre- and post-conferences classes and/or workshops to be taught in conjunction with this September’s CppCon 2022.

The Academy is interested in proposals for either onsite classes or online classes.

If you are interested in teaching such a class or workshop, please contact us at info@cppcon.org and we’ll send you an instructors’ prospectus and address any questions that you might have. The deadline for submitting proposals is January 31st, 2022.

CppCon 2021 Wrap-Up

Posted on by Jon Kalb

Hybrid Success

Our first adventure with a hybrid conference was a success! Although a our onsite attendee numbers were down (way down, see the photo of many of us), our online-only attendee count was up from last year (even with many of last year’s attendees attending onsite this year) and our total attendance grew (a bit) from our record in 2019.

Trip Reports

But don’t take my word for it, read what some of our attendees are saying. I’ll update this post as more trip reports are published.

Videos

JetBrains, a CppCon YouTube Channel sponsor, is providing early access to some of our conference videos. In addition to the Fireside Chat with the C++ Standards Committee, JetBrains has posted all of our onsite plenary sessions (from Bjarne Stroustrup, Herb Sutter, Lisa Lippincott, Michael Caisse, and Sean Parent).

In the next few weeks, we’ll be posting session videos to the CppCon YouTube Channel and slides to our repository.

CppCon 2022

CppCon 2022 will be held September 11 – 16 at the Gaylord Rockies, in Aurora, Colorado. Watch this page for more details.

Thanks

We all knew pretty early last year that 2020 was going to be a horrible year.

But many of us, certainly I, had great hopes for 2021. This year would be so good, due to “pent up demand,” that we’d forget all about 2020. Except that it didn’t turn out that way. 2021 turned out to be the year of disappointment following disappointment.

In addition to having to cut many familiar conference features due to lack of attendees, money, and planning time, the process of organizing a hybrid conference proved much more difficult that I’d imagined that it would be. We scrapped our program schedule twice before we came up with something that made us happy.

I confess to having low expectations for this year’s event. It wasn’t because we didn’t have a great team preparing for it.

The organizers, including our department heads, volunteers, and vendors did an amazing job of preparing for the event under terrible circumstances. Our Program Committee reviewed a near record number of submissions. The online volunteers had to master several different software platforms in order to answer questions and provide technical support for online presenters and other attendees. The onsite volunteers were very, very short-handed. They worked longer shifts than we’ve asked of them in years past and were also required to master new platforms for delivering hybrid session.

Our vendors, including, Bash Films, Digital Medium, Gaylord Rockies, Jonathan Phillips, Krueger Event Management, and LSAV Powerhouse, all went above and beyond to create a hybrid CppCon for the first time.

I was, of course, delighted by the way about team came together to see our challenges as an opportunity to succeed in a new way rather than as an excuse to fail at delivering the best possible CppCon experience.

I was happy for the support of our sponsors and both online and onsite exhibitors.

Still, I was very worried.

But there was part of the CppCon team that I’d not counted on. Our attendees! At every closing I thank the attendees because, I tell them, without attendees, we don’t have a conference.

This year I learned the deepest truth of that. CppCon 2021 was a success in the only way that really matters. Those attending were delighted that they were attending.

The attendees came through for us. In a year when we could have heard a lot of complaining (about no posters, no bookstore or author signings, no live-captioning, no Tool Time, reduced social events), instead we heard about how delighted everyone was to be able to see old friends, meet new friends, and engage with the some of the best minds in C++. We had great engagement during sessions, at lightning talks, and in the all-important “hallway track.”

2021 Onsite Group Photo

You are all my heroes.

I look forward to seeing you all next year.

Jon Kalb
Conference Chair

CppCon 2021 Online Keynote: Six Impossible Things by Kevlin Henney

Posted on by cppcon

We’ve previously announced keynotes by Bjarne Stroustrup, Herb Sutter, Lisa Lippincott, Michael Caisse, and Sean Parent. This is the last of our six conference keynotes to be announced.

Kevlin Henney

Kevlin will be online for an important discussion on the limits of what is possible in software.

Kevlin is an independent consultant and trainer based in the UK. His development interests are in patterns, programming, practice, and process. He has been a columnist for various magazines and websites, including Better Software, The Register, Java Report, and the C/C++ Users Journal. Kevlin is co-author of A Pattern Language for Distributed Computing and On Patterns and Pattern Languages, two volumes in the Pattern-Oriented Software Architecture series. He is also an editor of 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know.

Here is his talk description:

“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast,” the Queen told Alice on her adventures through the looking glass. Only six? In software development we believe impossible things all the time, no matter the time of day!

In this talk, however, we are going to take a look at six specific impossible things that shape the limits of what we can develop, all the way from the smallest detail of integer representation to the minefield of task estimation and prioritisation, via the uncertainty of distributed systems and the limits of computability. Once we know our limits, we can work within them to create solutions rather than problems.

CppCon 2021 Keynote: Warning: std::find() is Broken! by Sean Parent Live, In Person

Posted on by cppcon

We’ve previously announced keynotes by Bjarne Stroustrup, Herb Sutter, Lisa Lippincott and Michael Caisse. This is the fifth of our six conference keynotes to be announced.

Sean Parent

We’re happy to announce: Sean will be in Aurora live, in person for an important discussion on requirements, guarantees, and domains and how these effect the Standard Library and what we can expect from it.

Sean Parent is a senior principal scientist and software architect for Adobe’s Software Technology Lab (v2). Sean has been at Adobe since 1993 when he joined as a senior engineer working on Photoshop and later managed Adobe’s Software Technology Lab. In 2009 Sean spent a year at Google working on Chrome OS before returning to Adobe. From 1988 through 1993 Sean worked at Apple, where he was part of the system software team that developed the technologies allowing Apple’s successful transition to PowerPC.

Here is his talk description:

We often take it for granted that calling one of the Standard algorithms will do something meaningful. For example, when invoking `position = find(first, last, value)` we expect that if an element equal to value is contained in the range `[first, last)` then `position` will point to the first such element; otherwise, position will equal `last`. But how do we know `find `will perform this operation? This talk explores requirements, guarantees, and domains, and we’ll discover that maybe `find` doesn’t.

CppCon 2021 Keynote: Small Inspiration by Michael Caisse Live, In Person

Posted on by cppcon

We’ve previously announced keynotes by Bjarne Stroustrup, Herb Sutter, and Lisa Lippincott. This is the fourth of our six conference keynotes to be announced.

Michael Caisse

We’re happy to announce: Michael will be in Aurora live, in person to deliver a brand-new talk about inspiring and being inspired by the embedded world around us.

Michael Caisse started using C++ with embedded systems over 30 years ago. He continues to be passionate about combining his degree in Electrical Engineering with elegant software solutions and is always excited to share his discoveries with others.

Here is his talk description:

Less than 1% of microprocessors sold each year find their way into general purpose computers. Desktops, laptops, and servers of all sizes represent a very small fraction of the compute that surrounds us. We interact with a few of these systems but most go unnoticed. These invisible, unsung embedded devices offer lessons in engineering at all scales and can provide inspiration to seasoned practitioners and future technologists.

Join me as we learn from the embedded world and become inspired to inspire.

This talk is the Keynote talk for the Embedded Track.