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Return to Beautiful C++

Afterword

““ Beautiful C++” is not only a catchy title, but my own personal goal and what I appreciate (and hope for) the most in C++’s evolution. While it’s true that C++ is complex, writing C++ in a modern style already yields much cleaner — and yes, more beautiful — code than writing it in older C++98 or “C with Classes” styles.

But what does it mean to write C++ in a modern style? Documenting the answer to that question in one authoritative place was one of the major reasons Bjarne Stroustrup and I created the C++ Core Guidelines—including designing them with Enforcements so that you can optionally ask static analysis tools to help you stay in the “modern style” of C++ code. The guidelines are necessarily organized like an encyclopedia—a reference work you can use to look up the reasons for any of a com-prehensive set of things. What makes a good encyclopedia, however, makes a terrible textbook or novel that can be easily read front to back.

Beautiful C++ shines in distilling an essence of key guidelines, and presenting that essence in a way that tells the modern C++ story. Kate and Guy have deliv-ered a delightfully readable narrative where each chapter builds the plot further and takes us, the readers, on an enjoyable, illuminating, and satisfying journey. Now that you’ve enjoyed reading this book, you likely appreciate as much as I do how they have infused this set of guidelines with their own deep expertise and experience. They understand how, as C++ has evolved and grown, many of the added features really do let us make our C++ code simpler to read, write, and maintain because they let us directly express what we intend to do. That leads to code that’s beautiful—and it’s readable, maintainable, robust, and professional too.

As Bjarne Stroustrup has said for decades, inside C++ is a small, elegant language struggling to get out. Using C++ in a modern way is today’s major step toward expe-riencing writing in that small, elegant language. As C++ continues to evolve in the future, I hope it will continue to grow in ways that make “C++ as she is spoke” in modern code ever more beautiful still.”

— Herb Sutter, June 2021

Fair Use Sources:

• B09HTH1X38 (BeauCPP 2021)