Optimized C++

Preface

Hi. My name is Kurt, and I’m a code-aholic.

I have been writing software for over 35 years. I’ve never worked at Microsoft, or Google, Facebook, Apple, or anywhere else famous. But beyond a few short vacations, I have written code every day of that time. I have spent the last 20 years almost exclusively writing C++ and talking to other very bright developers about C++. This is my qualification to write a book about optimizing C++ code. I have also written a lot of English prose, including specifications, comments, manuals, notes, and blog posts. It has amazed me from time to time that only half of the bright, competent developers I have worked with can string two grammatical English sentences together.

One of my favorite quotes comes by way of a letter from Sir Isaac Newton, in which he writes, “If I have seen farther, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” I too have stood on the shoulders of giants, and particularly have read their book: elegant little books, like Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie’s The C Programming Language; smart, ahead-of-the-curve books, like Scott Meyers’s Effective C++ series; challenging, mind-expanding books, like Andrei Alexandrescu’s Modern C++ Design; careful, precise books, like Bjarne Stroustrup and Margaret Ellis’s The Annotated C++ Reference Manual. For most of my career, it never crossed my mind that I might someday write a book. Then one day, quite suddenly, I found I needed to write this one.

So why write a book about performance ...