Christopher Smith on 14 Oct 2003 14:36:18 -0000


[Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

[ALACPP] [Fwd: [herb_sutter] Announcement: C++/CLI -- Upcoming appearances] 

Okay, I admit that I felt darkness pass over me when I read this.

Still, it sounds very interesting.

-- 
Christopher Smith <x@xxxxxxxx>
--- Begin Message --- 
In this issue:

  Announcement: C++/CLI

  Upcoming appearances:

    USA, WA  "The Future of C++"
    Nov 10   Panel discussion with Herb, Scott Meyers,
             and Andrei Alexandrescu

    USA, WA  "The Future of C++ on .NET: A Tour of C++/CLI"
    Dec 10


_____________________________________________________________________
ANNOUNCEMENT: C++/CLI                    http://www.gotw.ca/microsoft

For the past year, I've been working on something that has now become
public, and I hope that it's an important statement about the future
relevance of C++ on modern platforms. In particular, I think it
demonstrates that C++ is alive and well in the industry in general,
and in particular that it's alive and well (and the subject of heavy
and continued investment) at Microsoft.

Increasingly, we are writing programs targeted to modern environments
characterized by a virtual machine with garbage collection. Leading
examples include the JVM and the .NET CLR (ISO CLI, or Common
Language Infrastructure, is the standardized subset of the .NET
runtime environment and frameworks class library). But Standard C++
has no notion of now-fundamental concepts like garbage collection.
Is C++ simply obsolescent? No; it can be cleanly extended to
directly support these modern environments. Further, C++ actually
offers compelling advantages that can make it the language of choice
for your application, even on the "home turf" of newer languages
specifically designed for these new environments.

The Managed Extensions for C++ (aka "Managed C++") were only partly
successful. They achieved an important goal well: The ability to take
existing C++ code and just recompile it with /clr and have it running
on the virtual machine, and then to start adding .NET features and
types. Unfortunately, they achieved other goals less well: As soon as
you tried to add .NET types and features to your system, the syntax
was uneven and sometimes just weird (e.g., T* meant three different
and incompatible things depending on the type of T), the extensions
looked ugly (e.g., __keywords), and they lacked first-class support
for some fundamental CLR features (e.g., __property decorations on
individual member functions that the compiler would cobble together
for you, instead of a property abstraction). More importantly, MC++
followed what I call the "two worlds" hypothesis -- it did expose the
important CLR features, but only for CLR types, not native types; and
it did not expose native C++ features also for CLR types. The two
worlds were grafted together, not integrated. This has been a
constant source of surprises to programmers who always have to
remember the list of things that don't work, or work differently,
when using CLR types.

Well, we've been working on it. My current job is that I'm the lead
architect for the language design team, and together with bright
people both inside and outside of Microsoft (and names you would
recognize), we have come up with a design for the .NET extensions
that meets all of the following goals:

  - provides an elegant (and uniform!) syntax and semantics that give
    a natural feel for C++ programmers

  - provides first-class support for all current and upcoming .NET
    features (e.g., properties, events, garbage collection, generics)
    for all types including existing C++ classes
 
  - provides first-class support for C++ features (e.g.,
    deterministic destruction, templates) for all types
    including .NET classes
 
  - preserves ISO C++ standards conformance (by adding pure
    extensions, but also in a way that we don't need to use "__"
    keywords)

  (See also http://www.gotw.ca/microsoft .)

Further, we're not keeping it to ourselves: On October 6, 2003, a new
ECMA standards committee was formed to create an open international
standard for "C++/CLI," this set of extensions to C++. Formally,
C++/CLI is a binding between ISO C++ and ISO CLI; the announcement is
at www.ecma-international.org/news/ecma-TG5-PR.htm . This is
important because it specifically enables other compiler vendors to 
implement the same extensions _and_ guarantee that they can fully
interoperate.

For those who are interested in seeing the shape of the project, we
will be making the proposed standard's base document (the "starting
point" document) publicly available on November 15, and I'll post a
link to it in a future issue of this newsletter. Then, starting in
December 2003, the new ECMA committee will take over the base
document and craft it into a consensus standard, which Microsoft will
track (i.e., we will incorporate changes the committee makes into our
product). The participants are tentatively planning to complete the
technical work by September 2004, which would let the ECMA General
Assembly vote on issuing the standard in December 2004.

I'll post more news bits and links as they become available. I'll 
also be giving more talks about this language extensions design over
the coming months; for more details as events get scheduled, see my
"Talks & Appearances" page at http://www.gotw.ca/presentations.htm ,
and you can also watch the "News" page, http://www.gotw.ca/news.htm .


_____________________________________________________________________
UPCOMING APPEARANCES                        
http://www.gotw.ca/news.htm

* The Future of C++
    November 10, 2003
    Redmond, Washington, USA
  Panel: Andrei Alexandrescu, Scott Meyers, Herb Sutter
  http://www.nwcpp.org/Meetings/2003/200311.html

  The organizer tells me that, although there'll be a $10 charge for
  non-NWCPP and non-WSA members to get in, you should be able to
  avoid even this by becoming a member of NWCPP (which is free, and
  you can sign up via http://www.nwcpp.org/Membership/index.html).


* The Future of C++ on .NET: A Tour of C++/CLI
    December 10, 2003
    Redmond, Washington, USA
  http://www.nwcpp.org/Meetings/2003/200312.html

  In October 2003, a new ECMA standards committee was formed to
  create an open international standard for "C++/CLI," a set of
  extensions to C++ that enable full and first-class support for
  CLI features and idioms, while bringing all the existing powerful
  features and idioms of ISO standard C++ to the CLI environment.
  C++/CLI has been designed by Microsoft in collaboration with C++
  industry leaders, and is an evolution of the Managed Extensions
  for C++ (aka "Managed C++"). Formally, C++/CLI is a binding
  between ISO C++ and ISO CLI; see the announcement at
  www.ecma-international.org/news/ecma-TG5-PR.htm .

  In this talk, the lead architect of C++/CLI talks about its
  design and major features, with a look under the hood at how
  compilers are implementing the new semantics. C++/CLI provides
  first-class and cleanly integrated support in the C++ language for
  all CLI features (e.g., properties and events, garbage collection
  and generics) uniformly for all types including also for native
  types. It also provides first-class support in the CLI environment
  for all standard C++ features (e.g., deterministic destruction and
  templates) uniformly for all types, including also for CLI types.
  These facilities are expressed through a set of pure conforming
  extensions to ISO C++, underpinned by a unified type system and
  unified pointer/storage system.


  N.B.: Space will probably be limited. If you are interested and
  might want to attend, please contact the organizer to let him know
  (if there is considerable interest we'll have to look at having it
  in a larger facility):

    David Brownell [mailto:brownell@xxxxxxxxx]

  Your email will help ensure there'll be enough room for everyone.



Best wishes to you and yours,

Herb

---
Herb Sutter (www.gotw.ca)

Convener, ISO WG21 (C++ standards committee)     (www.gotw.ca/iso)
Contributing editor, C/C++ Users Journal         (www.gotw.ca/cuj)
Visual C++ architect, Microsoft            (www.gotw.ca/microsoft)





To unsubscribe, send an empty email to mailto:herb_sutter-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

--- End Message ---
_______________________________________________
alacpp mailing list
alacpp@xxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.ellipsis.cx/mailman/listinfo/alacpp