Beautiful C++: 30 Core Guidelines for Writing Clean, Safe, and Fast Code

Discover the Beauty of Modern C++ " Beautiful C++ presents the C++ Core Guidelines from a developer's point of view with an emphasis on what benefits can be obtained from following the rules and what nightmares can result from ignoring them. For true geeks, it is an easy and entertaining read. For most software developers, it offers something new and useful." --Bjarne Stroustrup, inventor of C++ and co-editor of the C++ Core Guidelines Writing great C++ code needn't be difficult. The C++ Core Guidelines can help every C++ developer design and write C++ programs that are exceptionally reliable, efficient, and well-performing. But the Guidelines are so jam-packed with excellent advice that it's hard to know where to start. Start here, with Beautiful C++. Expert C++ programmers Guy Davidson and Kate Gregory identify 30 Core Guidelines you'll find especially valuable and offer detailed practical knowledge for improving your C++ style. For easy reference, this book is structured to align closely with the official C++ Core Guidelines website. Throughout, Davidson and Gregory offer useful conceptual insights and expert sample code, illuminate proven ways to use both new and longstanding language features more successfully, and show how to write programs that are more robust and performant by default. Avoid "bikeshedding": stop wasting valuable time on trivia Don't hurt yourself by writing code that will cause problems later Know which legacy features to avoid and the modern features to use instead Use newer features properly, to get their benefits without creating new problems Default to higher-quality code that's statically type-safe, leak resistant, and easier to evolve Use the Core Guidelines with any modern C++ version: C++20, C++17, C++14, or C++11 There's something here to improve virtually every program you write, design, or maintain. For ease of experimentation, all sample code is available on Compiler Explorer at https://godbolt.org/z/cg30-ch0.0. Register your book for convenient access to downloads, updates, and/or corrections as they become available. See inside book for details.

Table of Contents:
List of Selected C++ Core Guidelines xiii Foreword xv Preface xvii Acknowledgments xxi About the Authors xxiii Section 1: Bikeshedding is bad 1 Chapter 1.1: P.2: Write in ISO Standard C++ 3 Chapter 1.2: F.51: Where there is a choice, prefer default arguments over overloading 13 Chapter 1.3: C.45: Don't define a default constructor that only initializes data members; use in-class member initializers instead 23 Chapter 1.4: C.131: Avoid trivial getters and setters 31 Chapter 1.5: ES.10: Declare one name (only) per declaration 41 Chapter 1.6: NR.2: Don't insist to have only a single return-statement in a function 49 Section 2: Don't hurt yourself 59 Chapter 2.1: P.11: Encapsulate messy constructs, rather than spreading through the code 61 Chapter 2.2: I.23: Keep the number of function arguments low 71 Chapter 2.3: I.26: If you want a cross-compiler ABI, use a C-style subset 79 Chapter 2.4: C.47: Define and initialize member variables in the order of member declaration 87 Chapter 2.5: CP.3: Minimize explicit sharing of writable data 97 Chapter 2.6: T.120: Use template metaprogramming only when you really need to 107 Section 3: Stop using that 119 Chapter 3.1: I.11: Never transfer ownership by a raw pointer (T*) or reference (T&) 121 Chapter 3.2: I.3: Avoid singletons 129 Chapter 3.3: C.90: Rely on constructors and assignment operators, not memset and memcpy 139 Chapter 3.4: ES.50: Don't cast away const 149 Chapter 3.5: E.28: Avoid error handling based on global state (e.g. errno)159 Chapter 3.6: SF.7: Don't write using namespace at global scope in a header file 169 Section 4: Use this new thing properly 179 Chapter 4.1: F.21: To return multiple "out" values, prefer returning a struct or tuple 181 Chapter 4.2: Enum.3: Prefer class enums over "plain" enums 193 Chapter 4.3: ES.5: Keep scopes small 201 Chapter 4.4: Con.5: Use constexpr for values that can be computed at compile time 213 Chapter 4.5: T.1: Use templates to raise the level of abstraction of code 225 Chapter 4.6: T.10: Specify concepts for all template arguments 235 Section 5: Write code well by default 45 Chapter 5.1: P.4: Ideally, a program should be statically type safe 247 Chapter 5.2: P.10: Prefer immutable data to mutable data 259 Chapter 5.3: I.30: Encapsulate rule violations 267 Chapter 5.4: ES.22: Don't declare a variable until you have a value to initialize it with 275 Chapter 5.5: Per.7: Design to enable optimization 285 Chapter 5.6: E.6: Use RAII to prevent leaks 293 Envoi 305 Afterword 307 Index 309

About the Author :
J. Guy Davidson, head of engineering practice at Creative Assembly, works on its Total War game franchise, curates its catalogue, and improves programming standards across its engineering team. He serves on the ISO C++ committee, moderates the #include discord server, speaks at C++ events, and offers C++ mentoring support through Prospela and BAME in Games. Kate Gregory has 40+ years of development experience in multiple languages. She has keynoted on five continents, and volunteers in many C++ activities, especially #include , which is making the industry more welcoming and inclusive. Since 1986 she and her husband have run Gregory Consulting, helping clients worldwide become more effective.