In the Beginning: A Genesis of Our Craft

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."