Presentation at NW C++ Users' Group on July 17

On Wednesday, July 17, I'll be giving a talk in Redmond, Washington, for the Northwest C++ Users' Group. Admission is free, and pizza will be provided. Here's the talk summary:

The Universal Reference/Overloading Collision Conundrum

To help address the confusion that arises when rvalue references become lvalue references through reference collapsing, Scott Meyers introduced the notion of “universal references.” In this presentation, he builds on this foundation by explaining that overloading functions on rvalue references is sensible and useful, while seemingly similar overloading on universal references yields confusing, unhelpful behavior. But what do you do when you want to write a perfect forwarding function (which requires universal references), yet you want to customize its behavior for certain types? If overloading is off the table, what’s on? In this talk, Scott surveys a variety of options.

Though Scott will give a one-slide overview of the idea behind universal references at the beginning of the presentation, attendees are encouraged to familiarize themselves with the notion in more detail prior to the talk. Links to written and video introductions to universal references are available here.

For time, location, and other details, consult the talk announcement.

I hope to see you there!

Scott

Presentation at Oslo C++ Users Group on Friday, 14 June

On Friday, 14 June (a week from this coming Friday), I'll be giving a talk in Oslo for the Oslo C++ Users Group. Admission is free. The topic I'll be addressing is:

Lambdas vs. std::bind in C++11 and C++14

C++ developers have long had a need to bind functions and arguments together for a later call. This is what makes it possible to invoke member functions on objects inside STL algorithms. The same technology can be used to create custom callback functions and to adapt function interfaces to different calling contexts.

In C++98, such binding was accomplished via std::bind1st and std::bind2nd. TR1 added std::tr1::bind, which was promoted to std::bind in C++11. But C++11 also introduced lambda expressions, and they’re slated to become even more powerful in C++14. That means that there are now two mechanisms in C++ for binding functions to arguments for later calls: std::bind and lambda expressions.In this talk, Scott examines the pros and cons of each approach, comparing them in terms of expressiveness, clarity, and efficiency, and he comes to the conclusion that one should almost always be used instead of the other. But which one?

This presentation assumes a basic familiarity with std::bind and C++11 lambda expressions.

For time and location, consult the talk announcement.

I hope to see you there!

Scott

New ESDS Book: Effective Objective-C 2.0

I'm pleased to report that a new member of my Effective Software Development Series, Matt Galloway's Effective Objective-C 2.0, has just been published.

The first thing I noticed when I opened my copy was that the code is beautiful. In the pre-publication manuscripts I read, everything was black and white and plain, but in the published version (both print and electronic), code examples are syntax-colored using both multiple colors and a mixture of "normal" and bold font faces. If this makes it sound garish, I'm not describing it properly, because the result is wonderful.  Here, look:

If you're an Objective-C developer, I encourage you to check out Effective Objective-C 2.0. According to Matt's blog post announcing the birth of his book, there's a discount code worth 35% off if you buy the book via InformIT.

Scott

C&B Early Bird Rates Expire in a Week!

The special "Early Bird" registration rate for this year's C++ and Beyond (to be held December 9-12 near Seattle, Washington, USA) expires on June 9--a week from today. Attendance is strictly limited to 64 participants, and well over half those spots have already been taken. If you'd like to be part of C&B  2013, be sure to register soon. If you'd like to save $300, be sure that "soon" is no later than June 9.

In recent weeks, session topics for this year's C&B have begun to be posted, so the form of the program is starting to develop. In view of the fact that the first full draft of C++14 appeared in April and that final adoption is expected next year, it shouldn't be surprising that C++14 is emerging as an important theme. Though I haven't officially announced it yet, I plan to offer at least one session derived from material in the book I'm working on now. Until recently, I expected that book to be called Effective C++11, but my working title has now become Effective C++11/14.

C&B sessions will consider more than just language features. The one talk I have officially announced is Concurrent Data Structures and Standard C++, which focuses on an important threading-related topic that isn't addressed by C++11 or C++14. My guess is that there will be at least one session focusing on pure performance, too, though it's too early to say for sure.  (Herb and Andrei and I develop our session topics independently, typically motivated by whatever issues we're most  passionate about at the time.The result is engaging sessions with extremely up-to-date content, but predicting the topics months in advance is difficult.)

To keep abreast of session topics as they are announced, subscribe to the C&B blog or mailing list, or follow us on Twitter or Facebook. You'll find links to all these things at the C&B home page. And don't forget that early bird registration expires on June 9!

Scott