7 ms·

So happy to see Andrei Alexandrescu was included in this documentary. His book on modern C++ design was a mind opener at the time I read it. Maybe still is toda

So happy to see Andrei Alexandrescu was included in this documentary. His book on modern C++ design was a mind opener at the time I read it. Maybe still is today. Anybody else read it?

W0lf 3mo ago
Yes, I feel the same way. I met Andrei once on a Meetup in Munich, basically telling him that he taught me how to think which led to a somewhat awkward conversion. Fun times nonetheless :-)
- tenderfault 3mo ago
  1. Find your hero 2. Meet your hero 3. Start an awkward conversation with your hero. It always goes like this no matter what you try.
hcrisp 3mo ago
I read it recently. I liked a few of the chapters especially how policy classes fix some issues with OO design. I do recommend asking an AI chatbot to summarize each chapter and say what the modern equivalent is since some of the idioms have improved. I think one whole section was obsoleted through the use of std::variant and std::visit.
usefulcat 3mo ago
His talks are some of my favorites; he's a great speaker. Very engaging and has a great sense of humor, which he uses to great effect.
mwigdahl 3mo ago
Agreed, _Modern C++ Design_ is probably the programming book I've gotten the most out of in my career.
- lepicz 3mo ago
  hmm, yes it's interesting but honestly - not much of the stuff is usable IRL the only thing i was regularly using (Loki library) for was the assoc_vector
pjmlp 3mo ago
Of course, all his books are a must read.
ergonaught 3mo ago
It still amuses me, but Andrei's books were the "last straw" that pushed me away from C++ for many years. Great books, truly, and they helped cement the notion that I wanted to move on to a different language. (Go, at the time.)
- ahartmetz 3mo ago
  I seriously hated the book, too. The title should have been "Cute template tricks to make you feel smart and increase compile time, when to use: approximately never". I think about two things from the book caught on, one of them how to deal with lists of template arguments pre C++11. It's kind of horrible, but was sometimes (more or less) necessary.
cyberax 3mo ago
It also caused developers to produce template-heavy code that took minutes to compile. We used to joke that these developers were "bitten by Alexandrescu". But it was indeed a nice book that really made stataic polymorphism popular. Before that, most books focused on building object hierarchies with virtual functions, etc.

So happy to see Andrei Alexandrescu was included in this documentary. His book on modern C++ design was a mind opener at the time I read it. Maybe still is today. Anybody else read it?

W0lf 3mo ago

Yes, I feel the same way. I met Andrei once on a Meetup in Munich, basically telling him that he taught me how to think which led to a somewhat awkward conversion. Fun times nonetheless :-)

tenderfault 3mo ago
1. Find your hero 2. Meet your hero 3. Start an awkward conversation with your hero. It always goes like this no matter what you try.

hcrisp 3mo ago

I read it recently. I liked a few of the chapters especially how policy classes fix some issues with OO design. I do recommend asking an AI chatbot to summarize each chapter and say what the modern equivalent is since some of the idioms have improved. I think one whole section was obsoleted through the use of std::variant and std::visit.

usefulcat 3mo ago

His talks are some of my favorites; he's a great speaker. Very engaging and has a great sense of humor, which he uses to great effect.

mwigdahl 3mo ago

Agreed, _Modern C++ Design_ is probably the programming book I've gotten the most out of in my career.

lepicz 3mo ago
hmm, yes it's interesting but honestly - not much of the stuff is usable IRL the only thing i was regularly using (Loki library) for was the assoc_vector

pjmlp 3mo ago

Of course, all his books are a must read.

ergonaught 3mo ago

It still amuses me, but Andrei's books were the "last straw" that pushed me away from C++ for many years. Great books, truly, and they helped cement the notion that I wanted to move on to a different language. (Go, at the time.)

ahartmetz 3mo ago
I seriously hated the book, too. The title should have been "Cute template tricks to make you feel smart and increase compile time, when to use: approximately never". I think about two things from the book caught on, one of them how to deal with lists of template arguments pre C++11. It's kind of horrible, but was sometimes (more or less) necessary.

cyberax 3mo ago

It also caused developers to produce template-heavy code that took minutes to compile. We used to joke that these developers were "bitten by Alexandrescu". But it was indeed a nice book that really made stataic polymorphism popular. Before that, most books focused on building object hierarchies with virtual functions, etc.