Professional C++, 3rd Edition

Chapter 25Writing Efficient C++

WHAT’S IN THIS CHAPTER?

• What “efficiency” and “performance” mean
• What kind of language-level optimizations you can use
• Which design-level guidelines you can follow to design efficient programs
• What profiling tools are

WROX.COM DOWNLOADS FOR THIS CHAPTER

Please note that all the code examples for this chapter are available as a part of this chapter’s code download on the book’s website at www.wrox.com/go/proc++3e on the Download Code tab.

The efficiency of your programs is important regardless of your application domain. If your product competes with others in the marketplace, speed can be a major differentiator: Given the choice between a slower and a faster program, which one would you choose? No one would buy an operating system that takes two weeks to boot up, unless it was the only option. Even if you don’t intend to sell your products, they will have users. Those users will not be happy with you if they end up wasting time waiting for your programs to complete tasks.

Now that you understand the concepts of Professional C++ design and coding, and have tackled some of the more complex facilities that the language provides, you are ready to incorporate performance into your programs. Writing efficient programs involves thought at the design level, as well as details at the implementation level. Although this chapter falls late in this book, remember to consider performance from the beginning of your program life cycle.

OVERVIEW OF PERFORMANCE ...