Functional programming is a declarative way of writing programs by composing functions. In many situations, this can lead to code that is easier to write and understand and less error-prone. However, it requires a shift to a more functional mindset.
This talk gives an …
max is a function that returns the maximum of two numbers.
While it seems simple on the surface, there are some nuances if you want to make it fully generic.
For starters, what is max(-1, 1u) or max(lvalue, prvalue)?
Let’s go on a journey of overengineering max.
We’ll …
A C++ program manipulate objects, but it is undefined behavior if you attempt to manipulate them while they are not alive. So let’s do a deep dive into object lifetime.
When are objects created, and when are they destroyed? How does temporary lifetime extension come into …
There are, by now, several well-established C++ JSON libraries, for example, boost.JSON, rapidjson, and simdjson. C++ developers can choose between DOM parsers, SAX parsers, and pull parsers. DOM parsers are by design slow and use a lot of memory, SAX parsers are clumsy to use …
C++ is a big language — the upcoming C++23 standard will be over 2000 pages long. This talk will cover some obscure features you might not know. We will cover strange syntax like commutative array indexing and complicated declarators, surprising cases of undefined behavior in …
At the core of an interpreter is a loop that iterates over instructions and executes them in order. This requires dispatching: based on the current instruction it needs to select different code. A fast interpreter requires a fast instruction dispatcher, but so does everything …
We at think-cell have given many conceptual talks about iterators, ranges, string formatting, and generic programming in the past. Now, we would like to present the library that is the foundation of our code base and that lets us write code the way we like it: Short, elegant, and …
C++ and Rust are both system programming languages that recently received support for asynchronous programming using coroutines. Given the memory and time constraints, both languages opted for stackless coroutines implemented by a compiler-generated state machine. However, beyond …
Global variables are initialized before main() runs, but the relative initialization order is not necessarily well-defined.
As such, accessing global state while you initialize your global variables, might not work the way you expect.
A simple solution is to stop using global …
C++20 adds the “spaceship operator” <=> for three-way comparison, fundamentally changing the way we implement comparison. But there are a lot more changes: Comparison categories will give more structure, and the new operator rewriting rules will massively reduce …
When you need a container, pick std::vector<T> by default. This is common advice.
Why? Because std::vector<T> is cache-friendly.
This talk will quickly explain what it means, why it is so important, and how to write cache-friendly code yourself. We will look at the …
“Do not use owning raw pointers, use a smart pointer instead.” — And yet it is common to use them when writing a linked list, for example.
“Use a reference when a pointer is non-null.” — But the standard library interfaces themselves don’t follow …
Every non-trivial programming language needs a way to refer to another object that is stored in a different place. In some programming languages this behavior is the default — they have reference semantics.
But this is not the case in C++. In C++ you need a special type to refer …
C++11 added a generalized attribute syntax to annotate your code with additional information - basically comments that your compiler will read. It also standardized a couple of attributes. C++14 and 17 went on to add more standardized attributes. But C++17 also added another …
C++ provides a really advanced type system. A prime example of its application is std::chrono: It uses the type system to create different types for different units and prevent programmer errors.
But the same principle can be applied to your everyday code - this talk is going to …
Judging by the recent amount of talks about the STL Allocator model it is a pretty well-known fact that is has some issues. This is a problem because allocators are essential for many performance demanding applications such as games. The STL model makes it awkward both to write …