Book Image

Expert C++

By : Vardan Grigoryan, Shunguang Wu
Book Image

Expert C++

By: Vardan Grigoryan, Shunguang Wu

Overview of this book

C++ has evolved over the years and the latest release – C++20 – is now available. Since C++11, C++ has been constantly enhancing the language feature set. With the new version, you’ll explore an array of features such as concepts, modules, ranges, and coroutines. This book will be your guide to learning the intricacies of the language, techniques, C++ tools, and the new features introduced in C++20, while also helping you apply these when building modern and resilient software. You’ll start by exploring the latest features of C++, and then move on to advanced techniques such as multithreading, concurrency, debugging, monitoring, and high-performance programming. The book will delve into object-oriented programming principles and the C++ Standard Template Library, and even show you how to create custom templates. After this, you’ll learn about different approaches such as test-driven development (TDD), behavior-driven development (BDD), and domain-driven design (DDD), before taking a look at the coding best practices and design patterns essential for building professional-grade applications. Toward the end of the book, you will gain useful insights into the recent C++ advancements in AI and machine learning. By the end of this C++ programming book, you’ll have gained expertise in real-world application development, including the process of designing complex software.
Table of Contents (22 chapters)
1
Section 1: Under the Hood of C++ Programming
7
Section 2: Designing Robust and Efficient Applications
17
Section 3: C++ in the AI World

Understanding objects

Most of the time, we operate with a collection of data grouped under a certain name, thus making an abstraction. Variables such as is_military, speed, and seats don't make much sense if they're perceived separately. Grouping them under the name with spaceship changes the way we perceive the data stored in the variables. We now refer to the many variables packed as one single object. To do so, we use abstraction; that is, we collect the individual properties of a real-world object from the perspective of the observer. An abstraction is a key tool in the programmer's toolchain as it allows them to deal with complexity. The C language introduced the struct as a way to aggregate data, as shown in the following code:

struct spaceship {
bool is_military;
int speed;
int seats;
};

Grouping data is somewhat necessary for object-oriented programming...