Don’t trust hardware or software; then you can build trustworthy hardware and software.

James Hamilton on how to write reliable software in a world where anything that can fail, will fail.

Thanks to everyone who came to Redmond and/or watched online to participate in Going Native 2012, last week’s global C++-fest. It was a lot of fun, and generated a lot of useful and important talks that we hope will help continue disseminate understanding of C++11 throughout the global C++ community.

All the videos are now available online for on-demand viewing. Here’s a handy list of talks for your convenience. Please enjoy – and share!

 

Day 1

Bjarne Stroustrup: C++11 Style [Keynote]

Hans Boehm: Threads and Shared Variables in C++11

Stephan T. Lavavej: STL11 – Magic && Secrets

Andrei Alexandrescu: Variadic Templates are Funadic

Panel: The Importance of Being Native (Bjarne, Andrei, Herb, Hans)

Day 2

Herb Sutter: C++11, VC++11 and Beyond [Keynote]

Chandler Carruth: Clang – Defending C++ from Murphy’s Million Monkeys

Andrei Alexandrescu: Static If I Had a Hammer

Bjarne Stroustrup and Andrew Sutton: A Concept Design for C++

Panel: Ask Us Anything! (all speakers)

GoingNative 2012 Day 1 is just concluding, and we’re getting ready for Day 2 tomorrow with more C++11 information and panels.

Day 2 kicks off tomorrow at 9:30am U.S. Pacific time, with the theme “C++11 Today and Tomorrow.” Day 1’s focus was entirely about C++11 as it exists today; Day 2 is partly about C++11 right now, and partly about forward-looking material about where compilers and the standard itself are heading.

In the morning:

• First I’ll give a talk on C++11, VC++ and Beyond. After a couple of Microsoft-specific announcements at the beginning, the bulk of the talk is about C++11 today – what the key features are that will change C++ coding style, idiom, and guidance the most; tips on how to use those particular features well and the common initial mistakes we’re seeing people make as we’re all learning this together as an industry; how C++11 adoption is progressing throughout the industry from libraries to compilers to books; and finally some concluding thoughts about future directions of ISO C++, starting with the next standards meeting which begins in just three days.
• Then we’re excited to have Google’s Chandler Carruth with us to talk about the Clang compiler, a “reimagining” (sorry) of gcc that we think is one of the most exciting investments in the C++ world today and something people will want to know about. (Note: No hidden meaning here; the VC++ compiler team isn’t planning to switch to Clang or anything, we’re just really excited to see this as yet another part of the investment pouring into C++ across the industry and want to help people know more about it.)

In the afternoon, we switch to forward-looking topics, and the two talks are about proposals that will begin to be considered at next week’s ISO C++ meeting:

• Andrei Alexandrescu has agreed to deliver a brand new talk on “static if” for C++. I personally invited Andrei and Walter Bright to propose this feature for ISO C++ based on his experience with it in D, and Walter and I will be presenting the proposal next week at the Kona ISO C++ meeting.
• Bjarne Stroustrup and Andrew Sutton cover the latest in the still-active C++ concepts effort as the final talk of the event. We decided to request that particular talk because, even though concepts are not ready to come into ISO C++ again in the short term, they are still very interesting and people constantly ask about them, so we wanted to cover that important topic.
• Finally, we’ll cap the event with an extended 90-minute Q&A panel with all the speakers. Again, you can tweet questions to #ch9live or #GoingNative during any of the talks and we’ll cover as many of them as possible at the end of the talk, but especially be ready to tweet your questions during the panel which is entirely reserved for extended Q&A. This is your chance to pick the brains of a Who’s Who of modern C++, and it’ll be the fourth time in this event that Bjarne will be on stage – he is graciously expending himself for our benefit this week, so take advantage of his availability, and that of the other speakers!

I hope you enjoy it. Repeating the graphics and links for convenience:

GoingNative 2012 is a global live C++11-fest with unlimited free worldwide attendance – both live and on demand.

The goal is to make it interactive, and we’ve asked the speakers to reserve time at the ends of their talks for questions. Tweet questions to #ch9live or #GoingNative and we’ll try and get them asked. To quote the organizers, “We take this live thing seriously!”

GN kicks off tomorrow at 9:30am U.S. Pacific time with Bjarne Stroustrup’s keynote on C++11 Style.

 

 

Here are the other talks on Day 1:

 

C++11-fest minus 23 hours…

Recap:

• GoingNative 2012 is a global live C++11-fest that kicks off this Thursday at 9:30am U.S. Pacific time.
• 350 live in the room. Unlimited free worldwide attendance – both live and on demand.

Note that because of technical limitations, watching the livestream requires Silverlight (watching the stored videos later on demand will not). Silverlight is supported by all modern desktop browsers, but it’s a short download if you don’t have it already – so if you’re watching live, check in a little early to make sure you don’t miss a thing. If you’re watching on-demand, no worries – videos will be available in various popular formats as usual for Channel 9.

 

As we count down to launch, another tidbit from the “fun facts” department:

 

Myth: Software conferences are dying. Especially C++ conferences are dead.

Fact: Number of exclusively-C++ conferences in 2012: Three.

• Feb 2-3 (worldwide): GoingNative 2012.  The world’s first globally simulcast C++ convention. Free livestream + on-demand for everyone. 100% about C++.
• C++ Now! (May 13-18, Aspen, CO, USA).  100% about C++.
• C++ and Beyond 2012 (August 5-8, Asheville, NC, USA).  100% about C++.

Other conferences also include C++ content, such as April 24-28’s ACCU which has over 20 C++-specific talks.

 

C++11-fest minus 3…

Recap:

• GoingNative 2012, the world’s first globally simulcast C++ convention, starts with Bjarne Stroustrup’s opening keynote “C++ Style” this Thursday at 9:30am U.S. Pacific time (time zone converter).
• In-room attendance is sold out, but worldwide attendance is unlimited and free – all sessions will be livestreamed, and later after a short processing delay will also be available on demand.

 

As we count down to launch, here’s something from the “fun facts” department about GN2012:

 

Myth: C++ is for older developers.

• Fact: Age distribution for the live audience at my September 2011 talk on Writing Modern C++ Code: roughly half under 30.
• Fact: Age of the youngest in-person GoingNative 2012 attendee… wait for it…: 15 years old.

 

C++11-fest minus 5…

GoingNative 2012 is sold out for in-person attendees, but online attendance is free and unlimited – live-stream and on-demand. Watch the main page for links.

GoingNative 2012 is a 48 hour technical event for those who push the boundaries of general purpose computing by exploiting the true capabilities of the underlying machine: C++ developers. Distinguished speakers include the creator of C++, Bjarne Stroustrup; C++ standards committee chair, Herb Sutter; C++ template and big compute master, Andrei Alexandrescu; STL master Stephan T. Lavavej; LLVM/Clang developer Chandler Carruth; distributed and parallel computing expert Hans Boehm; and C++ library design expert and ISO committee member Andrew Sutton.

Although the majority of the audience will be on the web, here are some interesting statistics about the 350 people who are coming in person and will be with us in the room:

Developers attending in person will arrive from 18 countries and 23 US states. They are professional native developers from industry, from academia, from small businesses to very large corporations. They are CTOs, architects and scientists. They are students and coders. And they are all in for a real native treat!

Come join us live starting with Bjarne Stroustrup’s opening keynote on Thursday February 2 at 9:30am sharp U.S. Pacific time (here’s a World Clock meeting planner for other time zones). We have a special something extra in the first couple of minutes, so you won’t want to be late.

JG Question

1. When should you use shared_ptr vs. unique_ptr? List as many considerations as you can.

 

Guru Questions

2. Why should you always use make_shared to allocate objects whose lifetimes will be managed by shared_ptr? Explain.

3. What’s the deal with auto_ptr?

The solution to GotW #102 is now live.

The speakers and sessions for GoingNative 2012 (Feb 2-3, Redmond WA USA) have now been posted. With the focus squarely on C++11 on all compilers and platforms, I think this is going to be the C++ event of the first half of 2012, and I’m very pleased with the caliber of our speakers and their technical and industry breadth.

Note: 85% Sold Out. All sessions will be publicly available online for free, both livestream and on-demand for posterity. But to attend in person and be in the (very nice) room, tickets are just $112 and currently 85% sold out; I expect the rest to go quickly now that the talks are posted, so if you’ve been on the edge, this week is a good time to register here.

Speakers and Sessions. Here’s a summary of the talk titles; see the page for the full session list with abstracts. The bulk of the program is all about the new C++11 standard as it exists today. On Day 2, we’ve also included a couple of forward-looking topics that C++ developers are frequently asking about and we felt were important to cover – especially with the key experts already in the building. The program also includes two interactive panels where you’ll be able to ask and tweet questions for the speakers.

Day 1 (Theme: C++11 Today)

• Opening Keynote: C++11 Style (Bjarne Stroustrup, TAMU)
• Threads and Shared Variables in C++11 (Hans Boehm, Hewlett-Packard)
• STL11 – Magic && Secrets (Stephan T. Lavavej, Microsoft)
• Variadic Templates are Funadic (Andrei Alexandrescu, Facebook)
• Panel: The Importance of Being Native (Andrei Alexandrescu, Hans Boehm, Bjarne Stroustrup, Herb Sutter)

Day 2 (Theme: C++11 Today and Tomorrow)

• C++11, VC++11 and Beyond (Herb Sutter, Microsoft)
• C++11 and Clang (Chandler Carruth, Google)
• Static If I Had a Hammer (Andrei Alexandrescu, Facebook)
• A Concept Design for C++ (Bjarne Stroustrup and Andrew Sutton, TAMU)
• Panel: Ask Us Anything! (all speakers)

As promised, the focus on learning and using Standard C++11 – what it is, where it’s at, and where it’s going. I’m really excited to be a part of this, and I hope you enjoy it. In my original post I listed several ways your team can benefit from this material remotely, and I encourage you to plan for it, live or otherwise. I look forward to seeing many of you there in person.