In the Beginning: A Genesis of Our Craft
Walter E Brown
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The sage Confucius (né Kong Qiu) taught, "温故而知新" ("By reviewing the past, we gain new insights").
In that spirit, we will examine selected artifacts of some pioneering programming languages of the 1950s, drawing parallels with a number of the characteristics and idioms we cherish and routinely apply nowadays in C++ and other modern languages. As we uncover the origins of many now-common features, we will seek to improve our technical understanding, and also gain deeper insights into our roles as applied scientists.
IMPORTANT NOTE: This presentation will incorporate audio and video materials whose copyright I do not own. Therefore, since I/we have not secured reproduction rights for those resources, AUDIO OR VIDEO RECORDING, PHOTOGRAPHY, AND/OR RETRANSMISSION IS NOT PERMITTED DURING THE PRESENTATION. Thank you in advance for keeping me out of legal trouble! (I also thank you in advance for indulging me in a few digressions and bits of whimsy during this talk. ☺︎)
Walter E Brown
With broad experience in industry, academia, consulting, and research, Dr. Walter E. Brown has been a computer programmer since the 1960s, and a C++ programmer since the 1980s.
He joined the C++ standards effort in 2000, and has since written more than 175 proposal papers. Among numerous other contributions, he is responsible for introducing such now-standard C++ library features as cbegin/cend, common_type, gcd/lcm, void_t, and <cmath>'s mathematical special functions, as well as the headers <random> and <ratio>. He has also significantly impacted such C++ core language features as alias templates, contextual conversions, variable templates, static_assert, and operator<=> (the C++20 "spaceship operator").
When not playing with his grandchildren, Dr. Brown continues as an Emeritus participant in the C++ standards process and as a frequent speaker at C++ conferences and meetups worldwide.
Attendees and video viewers have described his many conference presentations with such accolades as:
- "Fantastic speaker"
- "Awesome!"
- "Impressive. Thank you"
- "As usual very clear presentation. Content is great, slides have the right level of complexity."
- "I think Walter E. Brown is the teacher I never had."
- "For a moment I was like I know these issues but thankfully I ignored that thought."