C++ and Beyond

The talk schedule with titles and speakers is now live at the Location and Schedule page.

The topics are designed to provide a balance of useful and pragmatic material, ranging from broadly applicable design techniques to hard-core deep dives on specific important language features. The program includes substantial coverage of:

• C++0x features and impact: In-depth discussion of move semantics (Scott) and lambdas (me) take up most of  day 1.
• High performance: Hardware performance issues and techniques in Scott’s “CPU Caches” talk on day 2, and then a double-barreled hit on day 3 with Andrei’s “CAS” talk on high performance concurrency and his “Super Size Me” talk on scalability-focused issues.
• Effective design: On day 2 Andrei has lots to say revisiting “Containers and Iterators,”  and I’ll be talking for the entire morning on day 3 about “Elements of Design” focused on design lessons learned in many domains but all useful today in your production C++ code.
• Three panels: The first and last are dedicated to answer your questions, submitted in advance and live at the event. The second promises to be an interesting and informative “cage match” where each of the speakers will choose two or three issues that they feel strongly about, but that are potentially controversial and bound to lead to lots of instructive discussion and debate about ideal designs and pragmatic tradeoffs.

Detailed talk abstracts will be posted in the near future. Stay tuned.

Updated 10/22 to reflect extension of Elements of Design talk.

Demand for C&B has been extremely strong, so Andrei, Herb, and I got together with the Salish, coordinated our schedules, and came up with a set of dates for a second rendition.  It will take place Monday, December 13, through Thursday, December 16. If you were shut out of October’s C&B due to a scheduling conflict, the fact that it sold out so quickly, or some other reason, this a second chance to participate.

Our approach to C&B Encore (as we’re calling it) is copy-and-paste.  Compared to October’s C&B, the daily schedule will be the same, the technical program will be the same, and registration and hotel costs will be the same.  I expect we’ll tinker with some aspects of the event based on what we learn at the October C&B, but fundamentally, this is a chance for 60 more people to get the C++ & Beyond experience. (As with October’s C&B, C&B Encore has a hard limit of 60 participants.)

A registration page for C&B Encore will go live in a few days, but here’s the essential information, i.e., what you need to know for scheduling and budgeting purposes:

• Early bird registration will run through November 14. Registration rates are the same as for October’s C&B: $2695 for individuals, and $2395/person for groups of three or more.  From November 15 on, rates will be $2995 for individuals and $2695/person for groups of at least three.  Early bird registration extends more than two weeks past the end of October’s C&B, so people who attend that event will have time to describe and (we hope) recommend it to their colleagues.  (If you attend October’s event and, in retrospect, don’t feel that’s it’s worth recommending, we hope you’ll tell us why, either face to face or on an evaluation form.  If we’re not making good use of your time, we want to know about it.)
• People on the C&B Waitlist get priority. If you’re on the waiting list for the October event, you’re automatically eligible for a spot at the December C&B.  Details will be available when the registration page is posted.

• C&B Encore will run December 13-16. The daily schedule will mimic that of the October event:  reception the first evening, morning-to-night sessions and activities the next two days, and morning to 5PM sessions and activities the final day.

If we don’t see you in October, we hope to see you in December at C&B Encore!

Scott