Overview:

The standard ISO/IEC 14882:2017 – aka C++17 – is settled. We saw the beginning of the era of “Modern C++”. “Modern C++”: A designation that has been given to this major revision, and the succeeding revisions of the C++ standard. We had a revolution with C++11. With the revisions C++14 and C++17, and the upcoming C++20 – we see an evolution. The time line below illustrates this.

Looking upon the number of features brought in since C++11 and think about their impact, one can conclude: Pre-Modern C++ – aka Classical C++ – and Modern C++ are two different languages. To quote Bjarne Stroustrup: “C++11 feels like a new language”.

Modern C++ emphasizes:

•  Type inference with auto instead of explicit type names.
•  Stack-based scope instead of heap or static global scope – profoundly applying the RAII idiom.
•  std-library smart pointers instead of naked raw pointers.
•  std-library string– and wstring-types instead of raw arrays of char and wchar_t respectively, and std::string_view to unify std::string and c-string based APIs.
•  std-library containers like vector, and unordered_map instead of raw arrays or “home-made” containers.
•  std-library algorithms instead of “hand-coded” ones.
•  Range-based for loops to write more robust loops that work with arrays and containers.
•  Exceptions, to deal with recoverable error conditions.
•  Local lambda functions instead of separately implemented functions or function objects.
•  Lock-free mutual exclusion using std-library atomic<> instead of alternative mutual exclusion mechanisms.

Goal/Benefits:

This training picks up where an intermediate C++-training would end. The main themes are maintainability and testability.
Furthermore, we will explore many issues and features in C++ like:

• Writing code with testability in mind
• Understand the importance of thorough memory management
• Write generic code using templates
• Get more acquainted with the C++ standard library so that “a lot of home-made coding can be avoided”
• Reasoning about sound and robust APIs where, for instance, raw memory shall never be exposed.

We summarize the training by reasoning about and concluding how a “good” API shall look like.

Audience/Participants:

This training is aimed experienced C++-programmers who want to comprehend and deepen the knowledge in Modern C++.

Previous Knowledge:

The course requires basic skill, at least 3 years’ experience, in C++ programming.

Practical Exercises:

During the training you will practice the presented topics in a few exercises.
We will write unit tests as a natural part of each exercise.
We will use the open and free integrated development environment from Eclipse.