Minor Update to Table Showing Compiler Support for C++11

I just added coverage of enhanced enums (e.g., enum classes) and new alignment controls (alignof, alignas, std::aligned_storage and std::aligned_union) to my C++11 training course, and during the course of my research into and testing of those features, I made some minor updates to my summary table of C++11 support in gcc and MSVC.

The new slides will be included in the published version of my C++11 training materials the next time I push out a release.  Having recently done that, I don't expect the next release to go out for a while, but in the meantime, the information sources I refer to for enhanced enums and for alignment control in my C++11 training course are listed below.

Enhanced enums:

• “Strongly typed enumerations,” Wikipedia.  Subsection of entry for “C++11”.
• “enum class -- scoped and strongly typed enums,” Bjarne Stroustrup. Subsection of “C++11 – the recently approved new ISO C++ standard.”
• “Better types in C++11 - nullptr, enum classes (strongly typed enumerations) and cstdint,” Alex Allain.
• “C++0x Forward Enum Declarations Cut Down Compilation Time and Dependencies,” Danny Kalev, 13 August 2009.

Alignment Control:

• “Probe and Modify Your Types' Alignment Programmatically,” Danny Kalev, DevX.com, 10 July 2008.
• “alignas / alignof,” George Flanagin, 17 June 2011.

Scott

September Open-Enrollment Seminars in Stuttgart, Germany

In what has in recent years become an annual pilgrimage to Stuttgart, I, in collaboration with QA Systems, will conduct three open-enrollment seminars in September.  Each is two days long.  As with all my public presentations, you'll find details at my Upcoming Talks page. To save you the trouble of clicking through that, here's the summary:

17-18 September 2012			Effective C++ in an Embedded Environment
20-21 September 2012			Fastware for C++
24-25 September 2012			An Overview of the New C++ (C++11)

The talk on C++11 will be a two-day version of my three-day training course, which means that some topics I'd normally cover will be omitted. The topics to be skipped will come out of the material covering new standard library functionality, but which library features will be omitted will be determined during the seminar, based on the interests of the attendees and the time remaining after all core C++11 language topics have been discussed.  To ensure that attendees have copies of all the materials I'll show, each attendee will receive a copy of the materials for the full three-day seminar, even though it will be clear from the outset that I won't be able to cover everything.  In other words, the handout you'll get as a seminar participant will include "bonus topics" not covered in the lecture :-) 

Last year's experiment in doing a presentation in German was, linguistically speaking, successful (people had no trouble understanding me, and I had no trouble responding to their questions and comments), but I don't speak German as quickly as I speak English, and that meant that I had to omit a couple of topics I normally cover.  The feedback I got was that covering more topics was more important than doing a presentation in German, so this year, I'm back to an all-English set of talks.  During breaks and lunch, I still plan to speak German, however, so if you're interested in hearing my funny accent and colorful grammatical constructs, don't worry. You'll have plenty of chances :-)

I look forward to seeing you in Stuttgart in September.

Scott

C++11 Training Materials now jibe with the Final Standard

I mentioned in my November announcement of an updated version of my C++11 training materials that I'd been made aware of a few places where my stuff wasn't fully in accord with the final standard.  In this most recent revision, I've addressed those issues.  To the best of my knowledge, everything in the materials now corresponds to the standard.

Achieving such conformance was my primary motivation for releasing a new set of materials so soon after the last revision, but I also clarified some explanations, fixed a few typos, and did other minor housekeeping chores. All in all, I revised things in about two dozen places. As always, people who've purchased the notes should have automatically been notified of the new release, and they should have received a list of changes I made. If you weren't notified, let me know.

Added 1/27/12: From Artima (publisher of the training materials):

You can log into Artima with the account you used to purchase the
book, click on "Your Settings", and redownload anytime. If you've
forgotten your password, you can get a reminder at
http://www.artima.com/account/mailpwd?d=%2Findex.jsp

Incidentally, I also increased the length of the free sample from 25 to 40 pages, thereby adding range-based for loops, nullptr, Unicode support, and raw string literals to the list of topics I cover there. That should make it easier for people to get a better feel for what they'll receive if they purchase the materials.

I hope you'll excuse my repeating myself from my November posting, but the following is still apt:

If you're interested in a book-like publication covering the most important parts of C++11 (both language and library), I encourage you to consider purchasing my training materials.  If you like my other publications, I think you'll like these, too.  To see exactly what you'll be getting, check out the free sample.

Because this publication is in an unconventional format (annotated training materials), is available from a lesser-known publisher (Artima), and is electronic-only (DRM-free PDF), getting the word out about it has been challenging.  I'd appreciate it if you'd let people know about it, whether through blogs, tweets, social networks (the politically correct term for Facebook), email, or that most retro of communications mechanisms, face-to-face conversation.

Thanks,

Scott

C++ and Beyond 2012 Announced

We've just announced dates and locations for C++ and Beyond 2012: August 5-8 in Asheville, North Carolina.  Like its predecessors, enrollment will be limited, and the centerpiece of the event will be all-new technical sessions by me, Herb Sutter, and Andrei Alexandrescu.

For more information, consult the announcement on the C++ and Beyond blog, then make plans to spend August 5-8 in Asheville for the premier C++ event of the year. I look forward to seeing you there!

Scott

New C++ and Beyond 2011 Panel Sessions Now Online

Microsoft's Channel 9 has posted two more sessions from last year's C++ and Beyond.  Both feature me, Herb Sutter, and Andrei Alexandrescu fielding questions from C&B attendees.

Session topics are:

• Concurrency and Parallelism.  This was actually put online in November, and I simply forgot to announce it here. Mea culpa.
• "Ask Us Anything." This was the last session of the event, so the questions were rather varied.

These are the final sessions from last year's C&B that will be posted, but we're already hard at work on C++ and Beyond 2012. It will take place August 5-8 in the eastern USA.  I'll post details soon -- within days.

Scott