New C++ Standard, New Focus

Now that the new version of C++, C++11 is out in the wild as an ISO C++ Standard, there’s a renewed focus on getting applications, tools, and books up to date with the new standard. The leaders of the ISO Committee have weighed in on the latest versions of the language. There’s Herb Sutter writing about C++11, there’s Bjarne Stroustrup’s C++11 FAQ, and the upcoming C++Now! conference that’s going to be held in Aspen Colorado. Clang is racing to get C++11 support into the stable release of the compiler, and GCC is humming along nicely with it as is Microsoft’s Visual C++. Instead of write about any specific things, I would lend my opinion on what needs to be the new focus not for C++11 the language, but the supporting toolchains surrounding this new language — and the version that’s coming after this one.

Minus the Header-Only Dogma

I’ve been working on the C++ Network Library for a few years already total but have been on-and-off with it until recently. One of the first decisions that I made in implementing the library was to try and do a header-only approach to implementing a network library implementation. At first it made perfect sense — you get the compiler to optimize as much of the code as it can while being able to expose a very friendly and expressive interface. When it was merely a handful of header files and there was just the notion of a message and the HTTP client, all was fine. I was perfectly happy showing off really simple but powerful use-cases where you’d want a C++ application to be able to make HTTP calls and get the contents without having any knowledge of how networks worked or how to program sockets on either Windows or UNIX-like systems. Until I got ambitious and it became a real project that people wanted to use — then reality became real.

C++0x Is Official: Unanimously

Herb Sutter, one of the rock stars of the C++ development world has posted his thoughts and shares with the world that C++0x has been approved unanimously as an International Standard. From his post:

The final ISO ballot on C++0x closed on Wednesday, and we just received the results: Unanimous approval.

The next revision of C++ that we’ve been calling “C++0x” is now an International Standard! Geneva will take several months to publish it, but we hope it will be published well within the year, and then we’ll be able to call it “C++11.”

I want to extend my thanks again to Bjarne Stroustrup for sharing his work with the world and continuing to help move it forward, and to all of the participants whose hard work went into achieving this important milestone in the history of a great language. Thanks!

– Herb Sutter on Sutter’s Mill

Now the real work begins in moving the world from C++98/C++03 to the more sane and much more wonderful C++0x.

Finally us C++ programmers can start looking forward to modern C++ features that makes programming with C++ just that more pleasurable and powerful.

Here’s to a brighter future with C++0x!