Practical Applications of Reflection & The Badlands of C++

I'm pleased to welcome Jackie Kay and Valentin Galea this month.

(As before, please also register on the SkillsMatter page) (https://skillsmatter.com/meetups/9568-c-plus-plus-july-meetup)

Agenda:

18:30 pre-session networking/ drinks and getting that good seat at the front

19:00 Phil Nash (https://www.meetup.com/CppLondon/members/48127252/) << "Hello World"

Brief introduction and raffle for a JetBrains license

19:10 Valentin Galea << "The Badlands of C++: Professional Game Development"

A lighthearted yet technical talk about the way C++ is used (and misused) in video games programming.

A survey detailing how game developers approach everything C++: from compilation to usage of STL, or extending the language with reflection systems. A showcase of some good things, some bad, while portraying the challenging demands of games programming.

The target audience is everyone interested or aspiring in professional game development, although veterans should also find something interesting.

.then() // Questions, hand-over, break

.then() Jackie Kay (https://www.meetup.com/CppLondon/members/91640672/) << "Practical Applications of Reflection"

What is reflection? Why is it considered "black magic" by some? And do we really need more black magic in C++? This talk covers the art of reflection: the ability to inspect (and maybe even modify) the data members and other qualities of a type. We will briefly look at how reflection is implemented in other languages and how it is achieved in C++ today through macros or compiler plugins. We will also compare current proposals for reflection targeting C++20 and present example utilities implemented using the reference implementation of the "reflexpr" proposal in Clang.

This is an abbreviated preview of the speaker's recent presentation at C++ Now 2017.

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We'll finish around 20:45-21:00 at which point we'll adjourn to the bar/ nearby hostelry for more informal discussion and networking.

About the speakers:

Valentin is a professional video game developer based in London, UK. He currently works at Splash Damage for the award-winning "Gears of War" franchise on Windows 10 and Xbox One. C++ enthusiast and evangelist, focused on systems, graphics and engine programming. He has 10 years worth of experience, with past work ranging from MMO projects to mobile and handheld games. When he's not geeking out on games, he collects vinyl records.

Jackie is a professional robotics software engineer, embedded software hobbyist, and amateur template metaprogrammer from the United States. Her open source work includes contributions to the ROS application framework for robotics, the Gazebo physics simulator, and work-in-progress contributions to the Kvasir bare metal embedded software libraries.