Herb Sutter's Blog, page 16

S&S Postscript

PS on the previous post regarding Stroustrup & Sutter:

I had asked the organizers whether it would be possible to get a piano in the room.

I just learned a few minutes ago that they will be able to arrange a baby grand. Sweet!

This is going to be fun…

Filed under: C++

Stroustrup & Sutter on C++: Mar 31 – Apr 1, San Jose, CA

It has occurred to me that I never announced this event here…

In two weeks, Bjarne and I will be doing a two-day Stroustrup & Sutter on C++ seminar in the San Francisco Bay area. It has been several years since the last S&S event, so Bjarne and I are really looking forward to this.

Super C++ Tutorial: Stroustrup & Sutter on C++

EE Live!
March 31 – April 1, 2014
McEnery Convention Center
San Jose, CA, USA

Registration

The organizers have kindly made sure they can expand the room, so seats are still available. Sorry for the short notice here on this blog.

Using C++ atomics: Lock-Free Algorithms and Data Structures in C++

Here’s one interesting content update: The sessions page lists our talks, including a talk by me with the title “Three Cool Things in C++ Concurrency,” which is pronounced “I hadn’t decided what exactly I wanted to talk about by the time I had to submit the session description.”

I have now decided, and the talk will be entirely on how to design and write lock-free algorithms and data structures using C++ atomic<> – something that can look deceptively simple, but contains very deep topics. (Important note: This is not the same as my “atomic<> Weapons” talk; that talk was about the “what they are and why” of the C++ memory model and atomics, and did not cover how to actually use atomics to implement highly concurrent algorithms and data structures.)

This talk is about the “how to use them successfully” part of atomics, including:

Best practices and style for using atomic<>s

Three examples, including lock-free mail slots and iterations of a lock-free linked list, all in portable Standard C++

Defining and applying the different levels of “lock-freedom” (wait-free, lock-free, obstruction-free) to develop highly concurrent algorithms and data structures

Explaining and applying key concepts including especially: linearizability; trading off concurrency vs. promptness; and trading off concurrency vs. throughput/utilization

Demonstrating and solving the ABA problem, with clean and simple code – that’s right, did you know that in C++11 you can solve this without relying on esoterica like double-wide CAS (which isn’t always available) or hazard pointers (which are deeply complex) or garbage collection (which isn’t in the C++ standard… yet)?

A few of you may have seen part of this material in the few times I’ve taught the extended four-day version of my Effective Concurrency course. This version of the material is significantly updated for C++11/14 and also contains new material never before seen even if you did take in the four-day EC course – including that instead of leaving the slist example as a cliffhanger, I present an actual complete solution for the slist example that is (a) correct and (b) can be entirely written using portable Standard C++11. It’s always nice to end with a solution you can actually use, instead of just an open problem cliffhanger…

I’m looking forward to seeing many of you in San Jose in two weeks!

Filed under: C++