Channel 9 - Entries tagged with C++0x

Marble Mazes for the 8's

Greg Duncan — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 14:00:00 GMT

Today's going to be a Marble Maze Monday kind of day... How about one project, a Marble Maze game written with C++, XAML, DirectX written for Windows 8 MDL (Microsoft Design Language, aka a Windows 8 Store App, etc) that was then ported to run on Windows Phone 8? Where of course you get the source for both too!

DirectX marble maze game sample

This sample demonstrates how to build a basic 3D game using DirectX. This game is a simple labyrinth game where the player is challenged to roll a marble through a maze of pitfalls using tilt controls.
Areas covered include:
Incorporating the Windows Runtime into your DirectX game for full Windows Developer Preview support
Using DirectX to render 3D graphics for display in a game
Implementing simple vertex and pixel shaders with HLSL
Developing simple physics and collision behaviors in a DirectX game
Handling input from accelerometer, touch, and mouse, and game controller with the Windows Runtime and XInput
Playing and mixing sound effects and background music with XAudio2
This sample is written in C++ and requires some experience with graphics programming and DirectX. Complete content that examines this code can be found at Developing Marble Maze, a gama in C++ and DirectX.
For more info about the concepts and APIs demonstrated in this sample, see these topics:
Create an app using DirectX
Understanding DirectX game development
Direct3D 11 graphics
Direct2D graphics
DirectX HLSL
XAudio2
XInput
Developing games
..."

Marble Maze sample for Windows Phone 8

This sample app is a port of the Marble Maze sample game targeted to Windows Phone 8. This is a fully featured game that demonstrates the use of Direct3D and Microsoft Media Foundation APIs.
This sample app is a port of the Marble Maze Windows Store app. Complete implementation details of the original Marble Maze game can be found in the topic Developing Marble Maze. Windows Phone 8 supports a subset of the features that are available for Windows Store apps. Because of this, several key changes were made to the app as it was ported. Details about these changes are provided later in this document. For more info about creating games for the phone, see Games for Windows Phone.
Build the sample
Start Visual Studio Express 2012 for Windows Phone and select File > Open > Project/Solution.
Go to the directory in which you unzipped the sample. Double-click the Visual Studio Express 2012 for Windows Phone solution (.sln) file.
Use Build > Rebuild Solution to build the sample.
Run the sample
To debug the app and then run it, press F5 or use Debug >Start Debugging. To run the app without debugging, press Ctrl+F5 or use Debug > Start Without Debugging.
Caution:
When running the sample in the debugger, the first time you launch the sample a first-chance exception will be thrown. This is because of the way that Windows Phone Runtime APIs handle the fact that the save game file does not exist yet. It is possible to suppress this error, but that could potentially hide other exceptions that may be introduced as you modify the code, so the error is not suppressed in the sample. Click Continue in the error dialog to ignore the exception and allow the app to run normally.
Changes made to the Marble Maze sample to run on Windows Phone
The following list describes the changes that were made to the Marble Maze app when it was ported from a Windows Store app to Windows Phone. Where possible, the source files in the sample solution where the relevant changes were made are listed. For more info about what’s different when developing a game for the phone, see Differences in game development between the phone and the desktop.
Drawing 2D graphics - Direct2D is not available on Windows Phone. The Windows Store version of the game uses Direct2D to draw 2-D graphics such as GUI elements. The phone version uses helper classes provided by the DirectX Tool Kit (DirectXTK) to reimplement the game’s UI. Source files: UserInterface.cpp, LoadScreen.cpp
DirectXTK’s SpriteFont was used in place of Direct2D fonts. Bitmap fonts were precomputed ahead of time. Source files: MarbleMaze.cpp, UserInterface.cpp
Loading textures - The Windows Imaging Component (WIC) APIs are not available on Windows Phone. These APIs allow you to load textures in multiple file formats. The phone version of the game uses DDS textures for the load screen instead of PNG images. Source files: LoadScreen.cpp
Texture images were downscaled from the versions used on the desktop. This is not for performance reasons but instead to reduce the size of the app. The larger textures greatly increased the app size, but did not provide greater visual fidelity due to the phone’s smaller screen. Source files: bridge.dds, bridge_bump.dds, floor_section1.dds, floor_section2.dds, walllevel1.dds
Direct3D APIs - Of the Direct3D APIs that are supported on the phone, most function exactly like their desktop counterparts for the supported feature level (feature level 9_3). One of the exceptions is the creation of a swap chain. There are a few initialization parameters that have special requirements on the phone. These include:
swapChainDesc.BufferCount = 1;swapChainDesc.Scaling = DXGI_SCALING_STRETCH;swapChainDesc.SwapEffect = DXGI_SWAP_EFFECT_DISCARD;
This code can be found in DirectXBase.cpp at lines 152-154.
Other changes to Direct3D code include:
Removed IDXGISwapChain1::ResizeBuffers call (DirectXBase.cpp)
Using IDXGISwapChain1::Present1 instead of Present (DirectXBase.cpp)
Removed unnecessary window size and DPI change handling code. These events do not occur on the phone (DirectXBase.cpp, DirectXApp.cpp)
File I/O – On Windows Phone, the LocalSettings folder is not supported. The PersistentState class from the desktop version was reimplemented in a custom SaveState method. Source files: MarbleMaze.cpp
FileIO is not available on the phone. The implementation was changed slightly in BasicReaderWriter::ReadDataAsync and BasicReaderWriter::WriteDataAsync. Source files: BasicReaderWriter.cpp
Input - To support the phone’s back button, BackPressed key handling was added to the game and keyboard events were removed due to the phone’s lack of keyboard support. Source files: DirectXApp.cpp, MarbleMaze.cpp
Audio - Due to limited support for Microsoft Media Foundation APIs, a custom WAV loading implementation was created. Source files: MediaStreamer.cpp
Code for background music playback was modified to use IMFMediaEngine. Source files: Audio.cpp

Note: When playing with this app in the Windows Phone Emulator and using a mouse, switch the Orientation to Portrait Flat. This will make it work with the mouse as you would expect it too. (Since the game is meant to be used with the Phone flat and not standing...and all that)

Since I was able to make //build/ this year, I got a new Surface RT and Nokia Lumia 920. So the Greg Coding4Fun workshop now consists of a x86 notebook (my Alienware M11xr3, running Windows 8 x64) the Surface RT (ARM) and the a Windows Phone 8 (ARM again).

So do these two app's deploy onto those two devices? You bet!

Here's two snaps of the above app's deployed and running on the given devices.

Was it easy getting the app's deployed to the devices? Yes and mostly yes. And the mostly yes reflects one time pain. I won't go into depth on how to deploy and remote debug app's on the given devices, but will give you a high level glimpse.

Surface RT

While on the Surface in the Desktop IE, go to http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/eng/downloads scroll down to the "Additional software" section and in the "Remote Tools for Visual Studio 2012" panel download "Remote Tools for Visual Studio 2012 (ARM)"

Once downloaded, install it.

When done you'd have a new tile called "Remote Debugger".

Start that and an app will launch on the desktop.

Now back on the x86/x64 machine running VS2012, change the target to Remote Machine

Since this is a C++ project there's two more steps you have to do.

In the Project Properties set the Machine Name for your Surface RT device. This will NOT happen automagically when you press F5. The Remote Debugger Connections will NOT start when you hit F5 like it will with other project types. So you have to set the remote machine name here, this is where the Remote Debugger Connections comes into play.

If you don't set the Machine Name prior to hitting F5, you'll get an error like this,

1>------ Deploy started: Project: MarbleMaze, Configuration: Release ARM ------
1>Error: Microsoft Visual Studio Remote Debugging Monitor cannot start without a Machine Name. Open project properties and specify a Machine Name under 'Configuration Properties -> Debugging'.

So select Machine Name, edit and select your Surface RT device.

Finally, change the Platform from x86 to ARM

Hit F5, the app should promote you to recompile (that it's out of date), it will deploy and launch on the Surface device. You may also get a dialog on the Surface asking you to get a Developers License... Log in with your Microsoft account and you'll get your 3 month license. These are free...

This is your one time pain. The next time you do this, you won't have to install the Remote Debugger and you'll know about the Machine Name/Platform change and you'll already have the Dev license installed on the Surface.

Windows Phone 8

Windows Phone 8 deployment was much easier. Plug in the phone via USB, select "Device" as your target

Make sure the Phone is unlocked (as in the Lock Screen is not up) and hit F5.

If I remember correctly, I was also promoted for a Dev license during this process too, but this time, it was on my Notebook and not on the device.

Anyway, that's it. The Windows Phone SDK is smart enough to automagically switches the platform to ARM (which makes sense since every Windows Phone 8 Device is ARM whereas Surface's can be ARM or Intel).

So Now

Now you have these two projects, the source for them both, guidance on how the Windows 8 Store App was modified to work on Windows Phone 8 and finally how to get both app's onto their respective devices... That should be enough to keep you busy for the next couple days?

Scott Meyers, Andrei Alexandrescu and Herb Sutter: C++ and Beyond

Charles — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 18:28:59 GMT

I was able to attend C++ and Beyond 2011 and it was a tremendous experience. The technical depth and C++ goodness was profound and lasted for 3 whole days (and two evenings). Thanks Andrei Alexandrescu, Scott Meyers and Herb Sutter for allowing me to crash your affair with my camera - which was perhaps too big and too advanced for the likes of me - still, I was abe to capture some great content, the first of which is this one: a C9 conversation with Scott, Andrei and Herb about C++ and beyond...

Andrei Alexandrescu is the co-designer of the D programming language, technical author and research scientist at Facebook. He is also one of the world's C++ (and D...) template masters. His talk on PBD (policy based design) incorporated the mind bending use of variadic variadic template templates. As Gilad Bracha says, learning is brain damage.Thanks for the headache, Andrei!

Scott Meyers is one of the most respected C++ practioners in the industry. He is the author of Effective C++, More Effective C++, and Effective STL. Scott's talks on the C++11 Memory Model and Perfect Forwarding were outstanding. I wish we could post them here

Herb Sutter runs the C++11 ISO committee and is one of the world's leading C++ authorities. Congratulations to Herb and the rest of the people involved with pushing the language forward on the recent ratification of the C++11 international standard (treaty)! Herb's also Microsoft's architect for native programming languages, with an emphasis on C++. We'll find out here what Herb thinks of D.

Much thanks to Scott, Andrei and Herb for allowing me to randomize them right after the event ended to film this conversation. We spend a fair amount of time exploring the Beyond part of the equation. I know Niners will be extremely pleased to see three C++ titans appearing on C9 at the same time! Excellent.

Highlights:

[00:00] Event debriefing

[01:38] Scott on C++ developers

[03:18] Modern C++

[04:17] Why D, Andrei?

[17:25] What problems does D solve that C++ can't?

[22:03] C++ and D interoperability (COM is old, but COM is good!)

[24:22] C++11 and Beyond

[26:01] Herb, ISO C++ Committee's next phase - what are you going to do?

[28:22] Scott, Andrei and Herb share perspectives on the ISO standards process, philosophies of language design, what C++ gets wrong, what it gets right

[49:48] Perspectives on this year's event and if/when C++ and Beyond will happen again

Tune in. Enjoy.

PS: If you can attend the next C++ and Beyond, whenever it may happen, I can't recommend it highly enough. Go. Follow @cppandbeyond to get updates and info on when/where the three amigos will get together again.

GoingNative 0: Help us fly this plane, Some modern C++, Meet Ale Contenti

Charles — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 18:37:35 GMT

Welcome to GoingNative!

GoingNative is a new show on C9 dedicated to native development and native developers, with an emphasis on modern C++. In our inaugural episode, we keep things light and easy as we introduce you to what we're doing, why we're doing it, and how it will go down. The most important thing to realize right off the bat is that we want you to join us in the cockpit and help us fly this plane.

The main goal of episode 0 is to introduce the cast of characters, including your hosts Charles and Diego, and to present some ideas of how we think this show will be organized and executed. For example, Diego Dagum and I will typically construct the show, iterate through some code demos of varying complexity, converse with native developers from Microsoft and across the industry, and then destruct the show. We're not sure if we should add a news component—you tell us. We're not sure how much rambling you want hear from me and Diego—you tell us. And we're not sure how advanced we should make the programming section—you tell us (do we provide both intro and advanced topics?).

Now, of course this first episode isn't just a "Hey, we have a new show. Yay! Tell us what you want for next time" type of affair! We do talk about and demo a few new C++ features (shared_ptr, lambdas, auto) and have a conversation with Ale Contenti - development manager of VC's front-end compiler, libraries, and IDE.

[You can play around with the demos in this episode by downloading the free VC++ Express IDE]

Table of Contents(click time code links to navigate player accordingly)

[00:09]Charles and Diego construct the show and talk about modern C++ (how 'bout that set, eh?)
[07:27]Diego demos shared_ptr (Please see STL's incredible C9 lecture on shared_ptr for much more detail)
[10:01]Charles and Diego chat briefly about C++ lambdas
[10:32]Diego demos lambdas
[12:13]Charles and Diego chat briefly about C++ auto keyword (seen in the lambdas demo)
[13:30]Charles and Diego talk about the audience and how you can help us fly this plane
[15:32]Charles interviews Ale Contenti
[26:35]Charles and Diego destruct the show ( it won't usually take this long )

We really want to hear from you, so please tweet feedback to @C9GoingNative (follow us!) and send your requests, ideas, complaints, praises, hate mail, and love letters to C9GoingNative@hotmail.com. We will read and respond to all messages! That's how we roll, brothers and sisters. If you are a Facebook user (who isn't these days?), then please join our C9::GoingNative Facebook group.

Go native!

C9 Lectures: Stephan T Lavavej - Advanced STL, 6 of 6

Charles — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 17:24:38 GMT

There are two STLs: the Standard Template Library and Stephan T. Lavavej

This is a very special episode—it was driven by you!

In Part 5, Niner KerrekSB commented that a great topic for this advanced series would be developing a generic mechanism for printing out STL containers (like a vector of ints). Then Sven Groot helped out with his usual brilliance. I love this Niner interaction!

You got STL to lecture on this stuff! That is HUGE

In fact, STL was so impressed that he decided to try it out himself and see how generic he could make it. He uses only those STL features available in VC10 SP1 (for example, variadic templates are not used in his solution because the feature is not implemented in VC 2010 SP1...).

What did Stephan come up with? Get STL's PrettyPrinter implementation, then watch this great episode to learn the details behind the code. Thanks STL, KerrekSB, and Sven Groot for an excellent exercise!

[Advanced STL]

Part 1 (shared_ptr - type erasure)

Part 2 (equal()/copy() - algorithm optimizations)

Part 3 (_ITERATOR_DEBUG_LEVEL, #pragma detect_mismatch, and /d1reportSingleClassLayout)

Part 4 (rvalue references v2.1 and associative container mischief)

Part 5 (deduplicator, using Boost.Bimap/Filesystem/ScopeExit) - see Stephan's deduplicate.cpp

Part 6 (container pretty printer) - see Stephan's pretty_printer.cpp

Watch STL's great introductory series on the STL

Daniel Moth: Blazing-fast code using GPUs and more, with C++ AMP

Charles — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 19:28:47 GMT

Herb Sutter recently announced C++ AMP at the AMD Fusion Developer Summit as part of his keynote. Here, Daniel Moth, a program manager on Microsoft's Parallel Computing Platform Team, digs deeper into C++ AMP with code samples and more. Please download the slides from the link below as the recording of this session doesn't do them justice.

Big thanks to AMD for providing Channel 9 with this excellent content!

To get full performance out of mainstream hardware, high-performance code needs to harness, not only multi-core CPUs, but also GPUs (whether discrete cards or integrated in the processor) and other compute accelerators to achieve orders-of-magnitude speed-up for data parallel algorithms. How can you as a C++ developer fully utilize all that heterogeneous hardware from your Visual Studio environment? How can your code benefit from this tremendous performance boost without sacrificing your developer productivity or the portability of your solution? The answers will be presented in this session that introduces a new technology from Microsoft.

Get the slides to this presentation here.

Learn more about C++ AMP:

Herb Sutter: Heterogeneous Computing and C++ AMP

Charles — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 04:54:38 GMT

Herb Sutter introduces the AMD Fusion Developer Summit 11 crowd (and the world!) to Microsoft's view on heterogeneous computing in the concurrency age and introduces one of Microsoft's upcoming technologies for democratizing GPGPU/APU/Multi-Core/Many-Core programming for native developers: C++ Accelerated Massive Parallelism or C++ AMP. Look for C++ AMP and associated tooling in the next version of Visual C++.

Big thanks to AMD for generously providing Channel 9 with this outstanding content! Get the slides for this presentation here.

Herb and the C++ AMP team state: C++ AMP will lower the barrier to entry for heterogeneous hardware programmability, bringing performance to the mainstream. Developers will get an STL-like library as part of the existing concurrency namespace (whose Parallel Patterns Library – PPL- and its Concurrency Runtime – ConcRT- are also being enhanced in the next version of Visual C++) in a way that developers won't need to learn a different syntax, nor using a different compiler.

C++ AMP is an open specification. What does this mean, exactly? Well, let Herb answer:

[54:05] -> Herb says "Microsoft intends to make C++ AMP an open specification that any compiler can implement. And we're working with our hardware partners to help them to build C++ AMP into C++ compilers for any hardware target, for any operating system target they want. We're helping them. And we're also pleased to announce that one of those is AMD, that AMD will be implementing C++ AMP in their FSA reference compiler for Windows and non-Windows platforms."

After watching this, please tune into Daniel Moth's deep dive C++ AMP session, captured at the same event.

You learned in the C++ Renaissance conversation with Mohsen Agsen and Craig Symonds that the C++ team was on a path of innovation. C++ AMP is a concrete example of what Mohsen and Craig were talking about.

Learn more about C++ AMP:

Mohsen Agsen - C++ Today and Tomorrow

Charles — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 15:00:00 GMT

The last time we got the chance to talk to Mohsen Agsen, a Microsoft Technical Fellow who runs the Visual C++ engineering team, he put forward the notion of a renaissance taking place in the native world. Shortly thereafter, we created the catchy C++ Renaissance mantra. (Mohsen is great at building metaphors in real time. See if you can identify a few new ones in this conversation!) The reception to C++ Renaissance message has been great (and, in some sense, unexpected). Now that some time has passed, let's revisit this meme and get a sense of what Mohsen really meant by a renaissance taking place in the native world, and C++ specifically. Is this renaissance taking place in the industry at large, or was Mohsen focusing on what's going on inside of Microsoft? Maybe it's both (at least from the native perspective, given Obj-C, C, and C++ usage outside of Microsoft).

Mohsen works in the Microsoft Hawaii office, located in Honolulu on the great island of Oahu. I was recently in Hawaii for the ICSE 2011 conference in Waikiki, so I was able to visit Mohsen to continue our conversation from a few months back.

It's really easy to talk to Mohsen—he's passionate, engaging, curious, and, most importantly, honest and open. There's no marketing in Mohsen. He's all engineer. When I asked him about what he thinks is needed in C++ and VC++, specifically, he answers, but he also asks YOU for your opinions on the matter -> How do you use C++ today? Are you interested in using C++ for building high-level UI-centric and data snacking apps? What do you want the VC team to focus on? Please answer these questions in this post. Mohsen and the VC product team will be looking for your answers here, so speak up! And thanks for asking, Mohsen. Very cool.

Tune in. Enjoy. (And remember to tell Mohsen what's on your mind regarding what he asks you in this conversation.)

Questions/Topics (click the link to navigate to the topic/question):

What does your team do at the Microsoft Hawaii office?

On the C++ Renaissance...

Mohsen asks you -> How are you actually using C++ today?

Mohsen asks you -> How do you think about the breadth of the language for mainstream scenarios (web services, data access, data snacking applications, etc)? Are you using C++ for these types of things? How broad should we think about the language beyond systems?

On concurrency...

How do you allocate resources on the VC team (so, how do you determine where to place human investments)?

Do you have a sense of how many VC++ developers actually use any of the other language tools inside of Visual Studio—so, would VC be able to ship faster if it wasn't bound to VS? (Yes, a weird Charles question born in situ during the conversation!).

How you feel personally about the state of the C++ language (were you upset that Concepts didn't make it in to C++11, for example?) ?

On C...

What do you think of the language Go?

Error reporting quality, templates and exceptions...

On C++ and JavaScript...

What do you want to see added to (or what's missing today in) the C++ language/libraries/tools? (Mohsen asks you -> What existing libraries should become de facto standards like the STL?)

Tech Ed North America: Kate Gregory - Modern Native C++ Development for Maximum Productivity

Charles — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 03:23:31 GMT

Kate Gregory presents Modern Native C++ Development for Maximum Productivity at Tech Ed North America 2011. Go Kate!

This session clarifies what features are in Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 and what is yet to come. It illustrates how new constructs such as lambda expressions enable better use of existing libraries and how your code can be simpler, safer and faster all at the same time. Also, see how simple it can be to implement concurrency in your application and how Visual C++ 2010 supports the difficult task of debugging parallelized code. If you are itching to show off how C++ is one of the coolest languages on the planet, this talk is for you!

Herb Sutter: C++ Questions and Answers

Charles — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 13:45:00 GMT

Herb's last appearance on C9 was a relatively short chat with me about C++0x. You wanted more questions asked and some of you thought I was just too soft on Herb. Well, Herb decided that the best way to get the questions you want asked is, well, to have you ask them. Most of the highest user-rated questions were asked and Herb answers with his usual precision. So, without further ado, it's C++ question and answer time with the great Herb Sutter, powered by you.

Questions (click the question link for Herb's answer):

Tim Pinkawa: Which non-C++ language do you find to be the most inspiring today? Are there any features in that language that you'd like to see in future C++ incarnations?

Matthias Merkers: So do you think that lacking toolsupport for C++ will be a major problem since there are new better-prepared system-programming languages available?

ZenJu: What is the strategy to deal with C++ language and standard library design flaws in the long run? Are you afraid "bad design decisions" may accumulate over time, thereby making it more and more harder for newbies to learn the language? Herb also briefly discusses noexcept... (two for one!)

Cory: Concepts — why did they fail and what work is being done to bring something like them back?

Cory/jalf: Polymorphic lambdas - why did they fail and what work is being done to bring something like them back?

Ben craig: There seemed to be some controversy over noexcept on destructors. Your books describe your reasoning on why destructors should never throw. What does the opposition consider to be a valid use of throwing destructors?

Anteru: Modules - Are they really coming, and if so, when do you expect the first implementation?

os: Could you discuss briefly the module support that didn't make it into C++0x please? How can this work with templated code that has a lot of functionality in headers?

David: why the long time in C++ standardization work? Will the next standard take as long?

Atle Iversen: I'm not sure how much you're allowed to tell us, but I would *love* to hear some details about MS Windows and/or MS Office; how much C vs. C++, which parts of C++ do they use etc (Google has released an "official" C++ coding standard, but I would love to see something similar from the MS Windows and MS Office teams...)

Cory: Filesystem — something like boost::filesystem is desperately needed.

Cory: Threading — thread pools, fine-grained task model, thead-safe containers.

Charles: Why not add an async/await language-level pattern to C++ just like in C# vNext?

Ari: Can you please comment on the influence of the boost community on the development of the new features of the c++ language. It seems that a lot of new C++0x features/additions have been adopted due to the wide use/acceptance of the feature/s as part of the boost library.

Alfonse: Uniform initialization (the use of {} to call constructors when the type being constructed can be deduced) has the potential to radically reduce the quantity of typing necessary to create C++ types. It's the kind of thing, like lambdas, that will change how people write C++ code. What is the Visual Studio team's priority for implementing this feature, along with initializer lists?

petke: What is on the top of your post C++0x wishlist?

Thanks for all your great questions and thanks to Herb for taking time out of his insanely busy schedule to sit down and answer as many of the highly user-rated questions as possible. Great stuff! We should do this again. For all the folks who asked about specific VC vNext implementations, please try to make it to BUILD as there will be a significant C++ presence at the developer affair in Anaheim (Sept 13-16, 2011). If you can't attend the event in person, then you will be able to watch all of the session online, as usual, after the event right here on Channel 9.

C9 Lectures: Stephan T Lavavej - Advanced STL, 5 of n

Charles — Thu, 19 May 2011 18:13:25 GMT

There are two STLs: the Standard Template Library and Stephan T. Lavavej

Advanced STL covers the gory details of the STL's implementation -> you will therefore need to be versed in the basics of STL, competent in C++ (of course), and be able to pay attention! Stephan is a great teacher and we are so happy to have him on Channel 9—the only place you'll find this level of technical detail regarding the internals of the STL. There are no books. There are no websites. This is Stephan taking us into what is uncharted territory for most, even those with a more advanced STL skill set.

In this 5th part of the n-part series, STL digs into the Boost Library (http://www.boost.org). In his words, it's an open source, super quality, community-driven STL++. Stephan will walk you through a sample application from end to end, using boost.

[Advanced STL]

Part 1 (shared_ptr - type erasure)

Part 2 (equal()/copy() - algorithm optimizations)

Part 3 (_ITERATOR_DEBUG_LEVEL, #pragma detect_mismatch, and /d1reportSingleClassLayout)

Part 4 (rvalue references v2.1 and associative container mischief)

Part 5 (deduplicator, using Boost.Bimap/Filesystem/ScopeExit) - see Stephan's deduplicate.cpp

Part 6 (container pretty printer) - see Stephan's pretty_printer.cpp

Conversation with Herb Sutter: Perspectives on Modern C++(0x/11)

Charles — Wed, 04 May 2011 15:30:57 GMT

I was lucky enough to catch up with Herb Sutter not too long after the FDIS announcement (Final Draft International Standard is complete).

As usual when talking to Herb, the conversation is all about C++ (well, we do talk about C# for a little while, but in the context of C++. Why?).

See below for the specific questions that were asked. You can simply click on a link to move directly to that point in the conversation. I do, however, strongly recommend that you watch the entire thing. I also recommend that you don't get used to this level of categorization in my videos (it takes a fair amount of time to do this sort of thing, so enjoy the times when I actually do this, but don't expect me to do this all of the time ).

It's always great to talk to Herb and get a glimpse of what goes on in the C++ Standards Committee (which Herb chairs). In this specific conversation, it's uplifting to see how excited Herb is for the future of one of the world's most capable and widely used general purpose programming languages. C++ is a modern programming language for power and performance, but it's also a highly abstracted general purpose language for building user mode applications, mobile apps, etc. The amazing part is how C++ can provide rich general programming abstractions and also ensure that your code can run at machine speeds. We talk about this, of course.

Tune in. Learn. Go native!

1:37 -> What were the goals of the C++0x standard, at a high level?

2:40 -> Language and Library abstractions and performance (how high can you go and still be fast as possible?)...

5:23 -> C++ as an application development language (in addition to the traditional C++ is a systems programming language meme)...

07:17 -> C++0x or can we now call it C++11?

09:21 -> Standards committees and real world user representation...

10:39 -> Who comes up with the new features that get standardized (or not...)?

13:01 -> What were the goals of the C++0x standard (non-canned answer)?

14:21 -> What does Bjarne mean by C++0x being a better C++ for novice programmers?

15:51 -> Why can't C++ look more like C#?

18:50 -> At the end of the day, everything(in terms of programmer-controlled computing) boils down to memory, right?

23:12 -> What are some of the most significant new features in C++0x?

25:05 -> What can VC++ developers expect to see in terms of C++0x implementation in Visual C++ next?

27:09 -> C++ and type safety...

29:05 -> C++0x and backwards compatibility: any big breaking changes?

34:16 -> C++0x in the Standard Library...

37:01 -> Any thinking in the Committee about doing much more frequent experimental releases of C++?

39:04 -> Are their features that didn't make it into the standard that you really wanted to be standardized?

41:45 -> Are you comfortable with C++'s current state? Is it modern enough?

43:22 -> Conclusion (or Charles doesn't end the conversation when his farewell begins - where does it go from there? )

Parallel Programming for C++ Developers: Tasks and Continuations, Part 2 of 2

Charles — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 23:39:47 GMT

The Parallel Computing Concurrency Runtime team write tools for the C++ community that make it easier to write reliable, performant and scalable concurrent and parallel code. In this conversation, Mike Chu , Dana Groff, Artur Laksberg, and Vinod Koduvayoor Subramanian talk about their latest addition to the Parallel Patterns Library which provides wait-free concurrency programming by specifying tasks, the ability to schedule tasks on events and continuations that specify a task or tasks which are run after one or more tasks finish. What’s better is that much of this is available now through the ConcRT Extra’s “Sample Pack”.

Here, Vinod Koduvayoor Subramanian, a software engineer who pushes this stuff to the limit and is a champion of target customers (also known as software testing), explains chaining tasks, continuations at the whiteboard. It's fast-paced so pay attention! This is the second part of a recent conversation about what's in the latest sample pack and the thinking behind it. See the first part here.

Please download the sample pack, play with the new library, push it and provide feedback to the team. They really want and need your input to insure they deliver the right things for real world usage by C++ developers. Go native!

Talkin' C++ with Alon, Marius, Bruno, and Jim

Charles — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 00:32:03 GMT

Recently, MVPs from all over the world descended on Redmond to interact with product teams as well as each other. They were given access to information relating to technology futures, roadmaps, etc.—all the things MVPs are privy to. I spent some time at the C++ MVP summit where VC++ team members provided several excellent sessions. It was great to meet some of the folks who are so helpful to fellow developers and Microsoft. Thank you, MVPs!

This video features C++ MVPs Alon Fliess, Marius Bancila, Bruno Boucard, and Jim Berveridge. It was great to meet all of them and I really enjoyed the candor of this spur-of-the-moment conversation! Thanks to these great MVPs, both for helping their software engineering peers and for providing insight and feedback to Microsoft, helping us do the right things for C++ developers. Cheers!

Talkin' C++ with Kate Gregory

Charles — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 19:43:17 GMT

I recently caught up with the great Kate Gregory, C++ MVP, Microsoft Regional Director, and all around excellent developer. Kate and several other MVPs from around the world were on the MS campus to take part in MVP Summit 2011. You will meet other C++ MVPs on C9 over the coming weeks and learn what MVP means—software engineers with a propensity for helping fellow developers get the most out of platform technologies and helping Microsoft do the right thing for developers and ultimately consumers.

As Kate says in this conversation, it's not clear that many other languages evoke so much passion as C++. Why is that? What is it about the language that is emotional?

It's always great to chat with Kate. She keeps her hands in many different software development technologies, speaks at numerous technical conferences and has always been a native developer at heart.

Thanks and praises to all MVPs!

Tune in. Enjoy++

Parallel Programming for C++ Developers: Tasks and Continuations, Part 1 of 2

Charles — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 20:12:23 GMT

The Parallel Computing Concurrency Runtime team write tools for the C++ community that make it easier to write reliable, performant and scalable concurrent and parallel code. In this conversation, Mike Chu , Dana Groff, Artur Laksberg, and Vinod Koduvayoor Subramanian talk about their latest addition to the Parallel Patterns Library which provides wait-free concurrency programming by specifying tasks, the ability to schedule tasks on events and continuations that specify a task or tasks which are run after one or more tasks finish. What’s better is that much of this is available today through the ConcRT Extra’s “Sample Pack”.

C9 Lectures: Stephan T Lavavej - Advanced STL, 2 of n

Charles — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 18:50:37 GMT

As promised, the great Stephan T. Lavavej is back! Tens of thousands of you have watched STL's (those are his initials, so that's what we call him) introductory series on the STL, or Standard Template Library. If you haven't, you should. This series, Advanced STL, covers the gory details of the STL's implementation -> you will therefore need to be versed in the basics of STL, competent in C++ (of course), and be able to pay attention! Stephan is a great teacher and we are so happy to have him on Channel 9—the only place you'll find this level of technical detail regarding the internals of the STL. There are no books. There are no websites. This is Stephan taking us into what is uncharted territory for most, even those with a more advanced STL skill set.

In the second part of this n-part series, Stephan digs into implementation strategies for various STL algorithms and opens the hood to look at some of the machinery inside the STL employing the goodness of template meta-programming and type traits. You'll also learn about some C++0x features that are used inside STL.

As you continue to learn about the beauty and the weirdness inside the STL, you should take Stephan's wisdom to heart and see if you can implement some of the patterns he shares with you in your own code. And you should, of course, take his advice about what NOT to do in your native compositions.

Tune in. Enjoy. Learn.

[Advanced STL]

Part 1 (shared_ptr - type erasure)

Part 2 (equal()/copy() - algorithm optimizations)

Part 3 (_ITERATOR_DEBUG_LEVEL, #pragma detect_mismatch, and /d1reportSingleClassLayout)

Part 4 (rvalue references v2.1 and associative container mischief)

Part 5 (deduplicator, using Boost.Bimap/Filesystem/ScopeExit) - see Stephan's deduplicate.cpp

Part 6 (container pretty printer) - see Stephan's pretty_printer.cpp

Tony Goodhew: VC++ Developer Communication - Questions and Answers

Charles — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 23:11:04 GMT

Tony Goodhew is a Microsoft veteran in the developer tools division and has returned home to his roots in VC++. He was a product manager on VC6 back in the day. One of Tony's priorities is effectively communicating with developer customers who expect open and honest answers to ALL of their questions. How does this process work? How can you effectively communicate your plan if your plan is still being created?

Developers want answers. Period. Tony and team have the responsibility of ensuring that the answers they give to developers regarding VC++ are in fact accurate and unequivocal. Developers ask, "OK. So, what's the plan for the next version of VC++? Why did you decide to not support C++ feature x? What about y++? What's going on here? When are you guys going to wake up?" Welcome to Tony's world (and the world of many other product managers across the company and industry).

I brought my camera to Tony's office to talk about C++, VC++, developer dark matter, the C++ Renaissance at Microsoft, VC++ versus GCC, and much more. This is a very candid conversation about developer-oriented public communication and the delicate balance between promising too much and promising too little. At the end of the day, it's all about what you deliver.

So, how do you decide how and when you will tell developers what your plans really are? How did you come to the decisions you make and execute on? Did you get enough feedback from the community to ensure you give developers what they most want? Have you implemented the things native developers have been asking you to do for years? When do you say yes and when do you say no? Tony, talk to us, man. What's going on here? How does it really work inside VC++ world?

Nice to have you back on C9, Tony! It's been a while.

Tune in. Enjoy.

E2E: Herb Sutter and Erik Meijer - Perspectives on C++

Charles — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 20:31:00 GMT

It's not often that we can get two minds of Erik Meijer's and Herb Sutter's caliber together for an impromptu technical conversation during Christmas break at Microsoft... Well, we did and the next hour or so contains a lot of intelligence, knowledge, wisdom, and passion. This is one of the more heated E2Es we've had the pleasure to be a part of and we think you'll agree. Herb and Erik are among the brightest of our trove of bright-minded engineers. We thank Erik and Herb for being so flexible and accommodating (there was no specific topical plan for the conversation other than the obvious—Herb and what he knows so well, C++).

Herb Sutter is an Architect on the VC++ team, chair of the C++ Standards Committee, a polished technical speaker and a super capable programmer. He is an ardent advocate of native code and works with the industry to move C++ in the direction it needs to go as general purpose computing evolves. As you know, Erik Meijer is a functional programming fundamentalist, a C9 celebrity, a master of mathematical duality and an unusually productive innovator (LINQ, "Volta," and Rx, are a few of his recent accomplishments). Erik is also the Chief Interrogation Officer for C9's Expert to Expert series. In this case, given functional programming's conceptual fingerprint showing up in almost all general purpose programming languages, including C++ with the addition of lambdas, putting Erik and Herb in the same room was sure to create some geeky technical magic. This post captures exactly what happened, unedited and raw. It's one of the best E2Es to date! Thank you, Erik and Herb! Keep pushing the envelope.

Tune in. Enjoy. Learn.

Microsoft's Commitment to C++

Christian Binder — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 17:23:27 GMT

Just be back from TechEd Europe, where I had a couple good C++ Sessions in my Track. One thing people frequently asked us is what is Microsoft's Commitment to native C++ Developers? So I decided for to make a short interview with Ale Contenti Principal Development Manager in the C++ Team.

Ale had also delivered a session on ALM for C++ at TechEd and if you are looking for the mentioned Code visualization and Layer validation for C, C++ it's part of the Feature Pack.

For more C++ visit the VC Blog here

Chris

Don McCrady - Parallelism in C++ Using the Concurrency Runtime

Stephen Toub — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 01:42:10 GMT

In this session, Don McCrady discusses how C++ programmers can fully utilize multicore in their applications using the Concurrency Runtime (ConcRT), the Parallel Pattern Library (PPL), and the Asynchronous Agents Library that ship with Visual Studio 2010.

Download Don's slidedeck for this presentation.

Download the source code for Don's Relatively Prime example.

Stephan T. Lavavej: Everything you ever wanted to know about nullptr

Charles — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 16:39:00 GMT

In C++, 0 is an abused integer. It is used to reflect, well, 0 as a value of type int and it is also used to represent a null pointer... The latter has led to many bugs and confusion over the past 30 years. Put simply, using 0 is and has always been a bad idea (then there's the NULL macro...). Well, my friends, today, with the release of Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 and the updated C++ language, compilers and libraries that come with it, the abuse of 0 comes to an end: Introducing nullptr the rvalue constant that actually is a null pointer literal.

Who better to dig deep into nullptr (and a few other topics of related interest and importance) than the great and gifted Stephan T. Lavavej? Stephen is a C++ expert and library author who you've met before a few times on C9. Sit back, relax and learn everything you ever wanted to know about nullptr. Thank you, Stephen, for the awesome lesson!

Enjoy!

VC Team Blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/vcblog/default.aspx

Parallel Computing in Native Code: New Trends and Old Friends

Charles — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 19:48:00 GMT

We've covered a lot of ground on both C++ and Parallel Computing on Channel 9 over the past few years. For C++ in particular, we've gone deep on many fronts with some of the main players in Microsoft's native programming world. Damien Watkins is one of these players and he's the brains behind most of the interviews you've seen on C9 (he thought them up and set them up). But who is Damien and what does he do?

Rick Molloy (PM) and Don McCrady(Development Lead) have been on Channel 9 before and they are both members of the native side of the parallel computing platform (PCP) house. It's no surprise that most teams who ship Microsoft software work closely with the C++ team given that most of our products are written in native code. The C++ team produces the de facto compiler that most teams at MS use. The PCP team is no exception.

We figured it would be fun to get a C++ player (Damien is a PM on the front-end native compiler team) and some Parallel People together in a room to discuss the native side of the Concurrency Problem (and possible solutions) and get a feel for the synergy between teams. The next version of C++, C++0x, will undoubtedly contain new language constructs that will make it easier to program many-core algorithms. We dig into some of these here as well as reveal for the first time on C9 some new members of the C++ language that you may not have heard about yet....

Enjoy. This is a great conversation among key thinkers who live in and innovate the native world.