When we announced the CppCon conference program and I posted my final talk selection, the original plan for my Friday ‘endnote’ plenary was for it to focus on giving an update on future standardization plans. However, quite a few people immediately wrote me to express disappointment that I wouldn’t cover my Modern C++ Style material, which they felt was sorely needed as we build updated C++ usage guidance in the presence of everything that’s new in C++11 and C++14 which really do make C++ feel like a new and fresh language. At the same time, I noticed that the standardization material I had planned to cover will be covered very well in the Monday CppCon talk “What the Committee Did Next!” by Alisdair Meredith, chair of the Library Working Group of the C++ standards committee.

So I suggested that maybe we ought to repurpose my Friday plenary session with the other highly-requested topic instead, and the organizers agreed. Here’s the new description:

Back to the Basics! Elements of Modern C++ Style

by Herb Sutter

This talk revisits basic questions, such as how to declare and initialize a variable, how to pass a value to a function, how to write a simple loop, and how to use smart pointers, in the light of experience with C++11 and the latest C++14 refinements. This involves examining auto, rvalue references, range-for loops, uniform initialization, lambda expressions, unique_ptr and shared_ptr, and more.

Like all CppCon sessions, this talk will be recorded and is expected to be available online a month or two after the conference.

Note: If you’re in the Seattle area, note that Friday admission is free and open to all, as are evening and breakfast sessions, even if you don’t have a registration to see the other 100+ daytime technical sessions. (Though if you’re in the Seattle area and a C++ developer, why wouldn’t you register for the whole conference? Airfare and hotel are the majority of the total cost for most attendees, so if you’re local anyway this is some of the most inexpensive high-quality training there is. Just sayin’. Note that I am one of the CppCon organizers but I have no personal financial stake in CppCon – I’m not getting a penny from it – I’m just a delighted participant and attendee.)

I’m looking forward to seeing many of you at CppCon!