Fluent C++ is 2 Years Old
Another year has flown by.
I opened Fluent C++ 2 years ago, and the first year anniversary seems to me like it was a few weeks ago. Time has gone by, but quite a few things have happened on the blog, and it’s time to make a little retrospective!
Let’s come back on the highlights of this year. If you’ve missed anything, now is a great moment to catch up (in fact the holidays are probably an even better moment to catch up, but there is no time like the present, is there.)
You might also be interested in what the future is holding for Fluent C++. In truth, I have no idea what the future is holding, but what I can tell though are my plans for Fluent C++ the coming months.
Let’s dive in the past, and then Back to the Future.
The second year of the blog
The video channel
The first project to kick off a year ago was the Fluent C++ video channel (youtube.com/c/FluentCpp).
The contents on the channel had the same topic as the written articles: expressive code in C++. They quickly came at par with the written articles, with one written post and one video released every week.
Some of you expressed that even though they were happy with the contents of the videos, they preferred the written format for various reasons (you can’t ctrl-F, ctrl-C, ctrl-V, nor skim through a video). I tried to improve the videos and at some point I started providing written transcripts to accompany the videos. Those transcripts were greeted by warm enthusiasm by those that had expressed the above feedback.
So I figured, I might as well write a blog post instead of a transcript, and that was the end of the regular stream of videos. The channel is still up, and I don’t exclude to use it again if a particular piece gets through better in the video format. But the main format has remained the written posts since then.
It was a great experience though. I warmly thank all the people that provided me feedback on how to improve those videos.
The World Map of the STL Algorithms
Even if you’re an occasional reader of Fluent C++, you probably have heard of the World Map of the STL Algorithms. This was a big project of this year for me.
It’s a map (of a fantasy world) where all the STL algorithms as of C++17 are laid out as cities. The cities close to each other represent algorithms that relate to each other. Together they form families and regions, with names and arms:
You can get the map, either by downloading it, or by acquiring the poster. You could also be interested in watching a talk that presents all the STL algorithms, and that uses the map as a support.
Smart output iterators
Smart output iterators are an alternative to some of the STL algorithms, a bit like the ranges libraries. I believe they have some potential, and I’m intending to keep working on them.
On top of the blog post, I’ve presented this library at C++Now. Thanks to Ben Deane for his ideas to improve the library.
Patreon
Reading stuff on Fluent C++ is free. But if you feel that it brings something to you, for example in your work, you can support my work on the blog by becoming a Patron! This was put in place this year and consists in sending me a couple of dollars a month.
A big thanks to my awesome Patrons!! 🙂
Towel Day
If I had to choose one post as being my favourite of the year, I think I’d choose the post of Towel Day.
Towel Day celebrates the work of fiction writer Doug Adams, that introduced the number 42 in the geek culture (ever noticed how most code examples use 42?). The Towel Day event on Fluent C++ consisted in writing the most beautiful piece of C++ code that prints 42..
And oh my, some of you guys wrote absolutely incredible code!
Guest posts
One of the goals for this second year was to allow more space for guest writers. There is now an official the guest posting page to submit your piece.
We had some great pieces by Miguel Raggi, JFT, Patricia Aas, Sergio Adan, Gaurav Sehgal, Damien Beaufils… The single most viewed post of this year on Fluent C++ was Federico Kircheis’s Function Poisoning in C++. It is interesting and well written. Federico is preparing a sequel to this post, this time about deleting a function in the more general sense. This new post will come out soon.
The posts!
A year is 52 weeks, which makes 104 new posts, that add up to those that came out last year. Check out all the contents of Fluent C++ on the Posts Page!
The third year of the blog
The plan for the coming months is to keep the publishing schedule of release every Tuesday and Friday. We will continue to explore the various sides of writing expressive code in C++.
More guest posts are under the editing process and will be published in the coming weeks. If you’d also like to put your writing on Fluent C++, check out the guest posting area!
The book
My big project for this coming year is to release my first book. Its title is The Legacy Code Swiss Army Knife. Here is an exclusive sneak preview of the cover:
The goal of the book is to help professional software developers to deal with legacy code.
Legacy code is everywhere, and it’s a problem for a lot of developers. This book shows practical techniques such as how to understand code you don’t know, how to cut down the size of a long function, how to stay motivated with legacy code, and so on.
It’s like the complementary side of expressive code: good developers should be able to write expressive code as well as work with any code.
But more on the book later. If you’d like to get notified when the book comes out, check out the book page.
Happy birthday, Fluent C++
If you’ve read articles on Fluent C++, if you’ve corrected me in the comments, if you’ve written me an email directly, if you’ve supported Fluent C++ on social networks, even if you’re considering reading articles in the future, then you’re part of this birthday.
Thank you for having been part of it this year.
Thank you for being here next year.
Happy birthday, Fluent C++.
You will also like
Don't want to miss out ? Follow:
Share this post!
