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.

The CppCon 2021 Field Trip will be an adventure into the mountains to sample classic mountain cuisine from Beau Jo’s, followed by a train trip over the far-famed Georgetown Loop.

Spend a fun-filled Sunday on October 24 with fellow attendees as we ascend to 9,101 ft (2,774 m) via air-conditioned buses and railroad coaches. This trip will encompass Geologic, Historic, Natural, and Culinary wonders west of Denver.

This year’s field trip is sponsored by the North Denver Metro C++ Meetup. Jason Turner, one of the meetup’s organizers, recommends:

You cannot go wrong with a trip up to Georgetown and a stop at Beau Jo’s for a truly Colorado experience. You get a feel for the amazing Rocky Mountains, a look into the mining past that shaped this state, and a taste of a Colorado classic! Just be aware these Pizzas can be ridiculously huge (and crazy tasty)! We always take visiting family to one of the Beau Jo’s locations, and you cannot beat the original in Idaho Springs. There’s also a local brewery right next door with grab-and-go, if you’re into that kind of thing.

Beau Jo’s is a Colorado institution, where we will sample some of their wonderful mountain pizzas in Idaho Springs, a mining boom town, now a historic landmark near the heart of many outdoor adventures.

After lunch, we will venture higher to Georgetown, and board the steam-powered Georgetown Loop to wind around an amazing train trip up and over itself to climb the mountain valley into Silver Plume, a mining camp started in the 1860’s silver rush.

If you are arriving for CppCon 2021 by Sunday morning, this is your opportunity to get to know some of your fellow attendees while touring some of the inspiring wonders Colorado has to offer.

See the CppCon 2021 Field Trip page for details.

Register here!

As already announced, CppCon 2021 this October will be the full normal in-person conference now that many of us can meet safely, and are just bursting with anticipation to see each other again in person… and also a coordinated online conference for those who aren’t yet ready to engage in person or for whom travel is difficult. The Call for Submissions is open for both in-person and online sessions, and we are planning to make much of the in-person and online content available in near-real-time to online attendees… including the in-person keynotes, which brings us to the opening talk of the conference…

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 The Design and Evolution of C++ as his goals for C++’s future development, including concepts, coroutines, and modules which in 2021 are for the first time now available as actual realities in production C++ compilers.

CppCon 2021 is proud to be the forum for Dr. Stroustrup’s landmark talk, which he describes as follows:

C++20: Reaching for the Aims of C++

Out of necessity C++ has been an evolving language. I outline some early ideals for C++, some techniques for keeping the evolution directed, and show how C++20 comes close to many of those ideals. Specific topics include type-and-resource safe code, generic programming, modularity, and the elimination of the preprocessor. Naturally, over the years, C++ has acquired many “barnacles” that can become obstacles to developing elegant and efficient code. That has been a recognized problem since the early days of C – Dennis Ritchie and I talked about it – so we must distinguish between what can be done and what should be done. The C++ Core Guidelines is the current best effort in that direction. The talk will start with a sequence of early design aim statements, and then match them directly to working C++20 examples and the Core Guidelines.

Early Bird Registration is now open for what will certainly be one of the most memorable CppCons ever this October 24-29. Register today!

Registration is now open for both online and in-person attendees. In-person attendees will require proof of being fully vaccinated, with the goal of further opening registration as we learn more about what will be safe in October.

We are very happy that CppCon 2021 can take place in person again this October, at the Gaylord Rockies, in Aurora, Colorado. We know that, by this fall, travel and onsite meetings will possible for at least part of our community to again engage safely in person.

But we’re also very aware that the pandemic won’t be “over” for everyone, everywhere by then, and we don’t want to leave anyone out, including people for whom travel is difficult even in normal times. So we’re announcing that CppCon 2021 will be a “hybrid” event with both in-person and online tracks.

We’re very pleased with the strong response to and success of CppCon 2020 online and plan to do something similar in 2021, integrated with the in-person event. We are still working out all the details for what a hybrid CppCon will look like, but we are confident that we can provide the CppCon engagement experience for both online and in-person attendees and we will let you know more details soon.

Here what’s next…

Soon we will be opening our Call for Submissions, for both online and in-person sessions. Even if you have never spoken at a conference before, why not submit a talk to CppCon, or encourage a colleague to do so when they have a cool perspective or technique to share?

Then, we’ll open Early Bird Registration for both online attendees and for in-person attendees who are vaccinated (or plan to be by October 1), with the goal of opening in-person registration further as we all learn more about what will be safe in October. Please consider whether your plans this fall can include joining us by connecting online, or traveling in-person to Aurora, Colorado, to be part of what will certainly be one of the most memorable CppCons ever this October 24-29.

Thank you very much for all your support for C++ and CppCon. We hope to see many of you in October, both online and in-person, and will have more details to share soon.