My impressions of Meeting C++ 2022, coming back for the first time after 5 years.
Contrary to some others C++ conferences, I don’t have a great attendance record at Meeting C++. The last (and only other) time I was there was in 2017, which incidentally was also the year I started to speak publicly at tech conferences. I had tried to come back in 2018, but that year most of my proposals didn’t make it (CppCon was the only one to accept any of the new ideas I came up with that year). The year after that, I travelled so much for events that I would probably not have made it to Berlin even if I was invited. And then the pandemic happened.
First in-person conference since 2019. Lost luggage. Adventures with the NHS and oh my!
Is it a coincidence that the last trip report I wrote was for ACCU 2019? Maybe it’s due to timing (I usually end up on a plane soon after and can write this while it’s still fresh)? Or maybe there’s something about this small British conference. A je ne sais quoi that keeps bringing me back?
How threading and locking can drastically affect the performance of your C++ program. Case in point: PhysFS.
Loading screens are pretty cool. They let artists showcase some nice art while the intro theme song starts playing. Used well, they can set up the stage for the eventual play by putting the player in the mood. But that’s only a side effect. Their main purpose is to keep the user busy while your game loads and initialize everything it needs to render the main menu, and possibly more. But after the first hundred or so starts, the experience may get old. Especially if that loading bar seems to be stuck forever.
Every once in a while, a discussion flares up on social media about C++’s performance in debug. But what do we mean when we talk about “debug builds”? The answer might not be as straightforward as it seems.
This year I was ready. I had prepared a stock of jokes about Britain, its food, its weather, the absence of good wine and the tumultuous relationship with the EU. It was time for ACCU 2019.
This year’s edition of ACCU was held from April 10th to April 13th, in Bristol as always. I arrived a day earlier from Paris after a short stop in France which was supposed to offer some supply of good weather and trips to a few winemakers in preparation for the harsh conditions of Great Britain.