Back to Basics: Const as a Promise - Dan Saks - CppCon 2019

Video Description

http://CppCon.org Discussion & Comments: https://www.reddit.com/r/cpp/ Presentation Slides, PDFs, Source Code and other presenter materials are available at: https://github.com/CppCon/CppCon2019 — Back to Basics: Const as a Promise The const qualifier has various uses in C++. One of the most valuable uses is in declaring function headings that constrain the effects of function calls. Using const appropriately can reduce bugs and development time by turning potential run-time errors into compile-time errors that are much easier to find and correct. Using const can even reduce your program’s code size and execution time. Despite these benefits, too many C++ programmers still use const reactively rather than proactively. That is, they tend to add const as needed to quell compiler error messages, rather than design const in as they code. To get the most out of const, programmers really need to understand (1) when and where to place const in declarations, (2) when to leave it out entirely, and (3) how type conversions involving const behave. The key insight about const is to understand const as a promise—a promise not to modify something. This session explains the real meaning of that promise and how that insight can guide you in declaring function parameters and return types. It also explains why you shouldn’t declare by-value parameters and return types as const, why overloading on const is such a useful and ubiquitous idiom, and why it is meaningful to declare constexpr member functions as const. — Dan Saks Dan Saks is the president of Saks & Associates, which offers training and consulting in C and C++ and their use in developing embedded systems. Dan used to write the “Programming Pointers” column for embedded.com online. He has also written columns for numerous print publications including The C/C++ Users Journal, The C++ Report, Software Development, and Embedded Systems Design. With Thomas Plum, he wrote C++ Programming Guidelines, which won a 1992 Computer Language Magazine Productivity Award. Dan has taught C and C++ to thousands of programmers around the world. He has presented at conferences such as Software Development, Embedded Systems, and C++ World. He has served on the advisory boards of the Embedded Systems and Software Development conferences. Dan served as secretary of the ANSI and ISO C++ Standards committees and as a member of the ANSI C Standards committee. More recently, he contributed to the CERT Secure C Coding Standard and the CERT Secure C++ Coding Standard.) — Videos Filmed & Edited by Bash Films: http://www.BashFilms.com *-----* Register Now For CppCon 2022: https://cppcon.org/registration/ *-----*