ISO has now published the new C++11 standard and issued a press release: English here, French here.

Thanks again to everyone who made this happen, most especially Bjarne Stroustrup, who not only invented the language three decades ago, but as Evolution Working Group subgroup chair continues to be an active guiding force in its continued evolution. C++11 wouldn’t be the same without the wisdom of his experience and his able direction.

Preemptive note for those who are concerned that ISO charges money for the final official text of the standard: There are, or will soon be, several good options ranging from cheap to free. First, all of the C++11 working drafts and papers are freely available at the WG21 committee page, including near-final drafts of the standard, except only for the final text where ISO asserts copyright. Second, as national bodies ratify and publish the standard themselves, you will be able to purchase the final text of the standard from them instead of ISO if you prefer (the only difference will be the cover page); for example, ANSI published the previous C++ standard in PDF form for $18, which is much less than most C++ books.

ISO’s bulletin text follows:

ISO PRESS RELEASE / COMMUNIQUE DE PRESSE DE L’ISO (VERSION FRANCAISE CI-APRES)

C++ language gets high marks on performance with new ISO/IEC standard

C++, one of the most popular programming languages used in everything from Web browsers to 3D video games, has been fully updated and published as, ISO/IEC 14882:2011, Information technology – Programming languages – C++.

C++11’s improvements incorporate many of the best features of managed languages. Its new features extend C++’s traditional strengths of flexibility and efficiency.

MORE: http://www.iso.org/iso/pressrelease.htm?refid=Ref1472

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Le langage C++ remarqué pour sa performance grâce à une nouvelle norme ISO/CEI

C++, un des langages de programmation les plus populaires utilisé dans tout, du moteur de recherche Internet aux jeux vidéo en 3D, a fait l’objet d’une mise à jour complète, publiée dans le document ISO/CEI 14882:2011, Technologies de l’information – Langages de programmation – C++.

Les améliorations apportées à C++11 intègrent un bon nombre des points forts des langages managés. De nouvelles fonctionnalités viennent rehausser la souplesse et l’efficacité de C++.

PLUS D’INFO: http://www.iso.org/iso/fr/pressrelease.htm?refid=Ref1472

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Filed under: C++

CSP for C++

C++ header generator

Interactive C++

This is the first I've heard of this project: it's an LLVM-to-Javascript compiler. Which means you can (for instance) compile C++ to Javascript. I can't decide if this is amazing or just batshit insane. Probably both.

Really cool to see a practical example of some of the  new C++ features.

Google (my current employer) has finally open sourced protocol buffers, the data interchange format we use for internal server-to-server communication. The blogosphere’s response? “No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame.”

Aaaaanyway…

Protocol buffers are “just” cross-platform data structures. All you have to write is the schema (a .proto file), then generate bindings in C++, Java, or Python. (Or Haskell. Or Perl.) The .proto file is just a schema; it doesn’t contain any data except default values. All getting and setting is done in code. The serialized over-the-wire format is designed to minimize network traffic, and deserialization (especially in C++) is designed to maximize performance. I can’t begin to describe how much effort Google spends maximizing performance at every level. We would tear down our data centers and rewire them with $500 ethernet cables if you could prove that it would reduce latency by 1%.

Besides being blindingly fast, protocol buffers have lots of neat features. A zero-size PB returns default values. You can nest PBs inside each other. And most importantly, PBs are both backward and forward compatible, which means you can upgrade servers gradually and they can still talk to each other in the interim. (When you have as many machines as Google has, it’s always the interim somewhere.)

Comparisons to other data formats was, I suppose, inevitable. Old-timers may remember ASN.1 or IIOP. Kids these days seem to compare everything to XML or JSON. They’re actually closer to Facebook’s Thrift (written by ex-Googlers) or SQL Server’s TDS. Protocol buffers won’t kill XML (no matter how much you wish they would), nor will they replace JSON, ASN.1, or carrier pigeon. But they’re simple and they’re fast and they scale like crazy, and that’s the way Google likes it.

XQuery library in C++ with Ruby bindings.

A C++ Web Development Toolkit