The Care and Feeding of C++'s Dragons

Chandler Carruth discusses managing complexity in large C++ codebases using compiler-based tools and analysis platforms developed at Google.

Day 2 - Last year I described C++ as bearing the cautionary label 'Here Be Dragons.' And yet we're all still writing C++ because it is the best programming language for the problems we face. In turn, we need a strategy to deal with the "dragons" that reside in large C++ code bases. The Dragon Book (my old compiler textbook) taught about a collection of tools to address the complexity of compiler design, and while our challenge is somewhat different, the approach remains the same. When a mere mortal programmer ventures forth to battle the complexity of large software systems in C++, they're going to need some really good tools to help them. At Google, we've been building up a platform of such tools. I will introduce the platform and toolset, and show how to use them to write fast and correct C++ code, quickly and correctly. I will also give a peek into the future of the next generation of tools we're working on and some of the really interesting changes to C++ that are coming in the next few years to help both programmers and these tools be ever more effective.