Sutter’s Mill

I am deeply saddened to report that this weekend, far too soon, we lost Gor Nishanov: a friend and colleague, an extraordinary software engineer, and a long-serving member of the C++ standards committee.

Four weeks ago I was in downtown Manhattan for the world premiere event for C++: The Documentary.

tl;dr… A few highlights Adopted this week in draft C++29: Complete catalog of all undefined behavior (UB) in C++.

C++: The Documentary premiered today on YouTube, and it was great to be on the live chat with Bjarne and many other key folks who participated in C++’s history.

Back in October, I wrote “Schneier on LLM vulnerabilities, agentic AI, and ‘trusting trust'” about fundamental architectural weaknesses in current LLMs and agents, and why I personally don’t yet trust AI agents with my credentials.

At the London C++ meetup last month, I participated on a panel where each panelist gave a short introductory presentation.

BeCPP just posted this video of my talk at their March 30 Symposium.

News flash: C++26 is done!

2025 was another great year for C++.

In the next week, I will be giving talks on C++ reflection in Singapore (Thursday night) and Sydney (Sunday night).

On Saturday, the ISO C++ committee completed the first of two final fit-and-finish meetings for C++26, in our meeting in Kona, USA.

Last month, I was having dinner with a group and someone at the table was excitedly sharing how they were using agentic AI to create and merge PRs for them, with some review but with a lot of trust and automation.

I’m running this poll to gather data, both for myself and for other interested C++ committee members.

In two weeks I’ll be giving a talk at the local C++ meetup here in peaceful, quirky, dog-walking, frisbee-throwing, family-friendly Portland, Oregon, USA.

I usually only give one new talk a year, but this year I volunteered to give a second new talk at CppCon on a topic I haven’t spoken on before: draft C++26 contracts.

My CppCon keynote video is now online.

Thanks to C++ on Sea for inviting me to speak in June!

A unique milestone: “Whole new language” Today marks a turning point in C++: A few minutes ago, the C++ committee voted the first seven (7) papers for compile-time reflection into draft C++26 to several sustained rounds of applause in the room.

I recently contributed a guest post on my employer’s blog about the importance of the almost-feature-complete C++26 draft standard: “Sea change in C++: Why opportunities abound” It starts by summarizing a talk I gave recently, about how C++26 is poised to…

For more background on safety and security issues related to C++, including definitions of “language safety” and “software security” and similar terms, see my March 2024 essay “C++ safety, in context.”

On Saturday, the ISO C++ committee completed the second-last design meeting of C++26, held in Hagenberg, Austria.

After my code::dive talk in November, the organizers also recorded an extra 9-minute interview that covered these questions: What role do you think AI will play in shaping programming languages?

The Biden administration just issued another executive order (EO) on hardening U.S. cybersecurity.

Next week, on January 15, I’ll be speaking at the University of Waterloo, my alma mater.

Less than two weeks from now, on January 13 I’ll be speaking at the New York C++ meetup in Midtown East (Clinton Hall at 230 E 51st Street).

[Updates: Clarified that an intrusive discriminator would be far beyond what most people mean by “C++ ABI break.”

Two weeks ago, Bjarne and I and lots of ISO committee members had a blast at the code::dive C++ conference held on November 25, just two days after the end of the Wrocław ISO C++ meeting.

On Saturday, the ISO C++ committee completed the third-last design meeting of C++26, held in Wrocław, Poland.

Starting today I’m excited to be working on a new team, with my C++ standards and community roles unchanged.

In early September I had a very enjoyable technical chat with Steve Klabnik of Rust fame and interviewer Kevin Ball of Software Engineering Daily, and the podcast is now available.

Boy, Jens Weller turns these things around quickly!

Tomorrow I’ll be joining Jens Weller for a live AMA on “Meeting C++ online.”

Yesterday I gave the opening talk at CppCon 2024 here in Aurora, CO, USA, on “Peering Forward: C++’s Next Decade.”

Here’s a super simple question: “How do I write a parameter that accepts any non-const std::istream argument?

Acknowledgments: Thanks to Davis Herring, Jens Maurer, Richard Smith, Krystian Stasiowski, and Ville Voutilainen, who are all ISO C++ committee core language experts, for helping make my answer below correct and precise.

Over the winter and spring I spent a bunch of time building my essay “C++ safety, in context” and the related ACCU 2024 safety keynote, and on behind-the-scenes work toward improving C++ memory safety that you’ll be hearing more about in the coming months…

On Saturday, the ISO C++ committee completed its fourth meeting of C++26, held in St Louis, MO, USA.

Also in April, I was interviewed by Jordi Mon Companys for Software Engineering Daily, and that interview was just published on the SE Daily podcast.

Many thanks to ACCU for inviting me back again this April.

On Friday, I sat down with Kevin Carpenter to do a short (12-min) interview about my ACCU talk coming up on April 17, and other topics.

With the winter ISO meeting behind us, it’s onward into spring conference season!

Moments ago, the ISO C++ committee completed its third meeting of C++26, held in Tokyo, Japan.

Scope.

I generally give one or two courses a year on C++ and related technologies.

Today, the ISO C++ committee completed its second meeting of C++26, held in Kona, HI, USA.

My Thursday CppCon talk is now online.

Since the 2022-12-31 year-end mini-update and the 2023-04-30 spring update, progress has continued on cppfront.

Thanks again to C++ Now for inviting me to speak this year in glorious Aspen, Colorado, USA!

Minutes ago, the ISO C++ committee finished its meeting in-person in Varna, Bulgaria and online via Zoom, where we formally began adopting features into C++26.

Since the year-end mini-update, progress has continued on cppfront.