The Joy of C++26 Contracts - Myths, Misconceptions & Defensive Programming - Herb Sutter

https://cppcon.org
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The Joy of C++26 Contracts - Myths, Misconceptions & Defensive Programming - Herb Sutter - CppCon 2025
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This talk is all about the C++26 contracts feature. It covers the following topics:

Why defensive programming is a Good Thing (mainly for functional safety, but occasionally also for memory safety)
Brief overview of C++26 contracts, and why they’re way better than C assert (spoiler: writing them on declarations, being able to use them in release builds, and language support is just way better than macros)
The 3-page “Effective C++ Contracts book” — best practices you need to know to use them (spoiler: keep compound conditions together, don’t write side effects, understand the pros and cons of installing a throwing violation handler… that’s pretty much… it?)
Why they’re viable, because they address the key things we need in production (which we’ll list)
Why they’re minimal, because we actually need every part in C++26 to use them at scale (which we’ll do by systematically summarizing why each piece is necessary)
What the future evolution of contracts holds (spoiler: virtual functions! groups/labels!)
A review of Frequently Asked Questions

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Slides: https://github.com/CppCon/CppCon2025/...

Work at Hudson River Trading (HRT): https://tinyurl.com/safxfctf
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Herb Sutter

Herb is a technical fellow at Citadel Securities, designer of several Standard C++ features, and chair of the ISO C++ committee and the Standard C++ Foundation. His current interest is simplifying C++.
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CppCon is the annual, week-long face-to-face gathering for the entire C++ community. The conference is organized by the C++ community for the community. You will enjoy inspirational talks and a friendly atmosphere designed to help attendees learn from each other, meet interesting people, and generally have a stimulating experience. Taking place this year in Aurora, Colorado, near the Denver airport, and including multiple diverse tracks, the conference will appeal to anyone from C++ novices to experts.
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