There's a new interview with me available at my Articles and Interviews page. 
The interview was done in English, then translated into German, and it's the
German version that was published.  You'll find links to both versions at
http://www.aristeia.com/publications.html

I haven't added the information to my Upcoming Talks page yet, but in January
I'll be participating at a three-city conference in India.  You can see a
marketing-heavy overview in the press release at
http://www.ddj.com/pressroom/090506.htm

I'm on the Organizing Committee for the first-ever Boost conference, to be held
next May in Aspen, Colorado.  Details are available at
http://www.boost.org/more/BoostCon07.html.  I currently plan to submit a talk
proposal or two, but the Call for Proposals isn't yet out, so whether I'll be
speaking there is unknown.  If you're heavy into Boost, keep an eye out for the
Call for Proposals and make one or more submissions.  Maybe you'll be the person
who bumps me out of a speaking spot!

Other talks in October and November I've already announced for Portland, Oregon,
and Frankfurt, Germany, continue to be listed on my Upcoming Talks page,
http://www.aristeia.com/seminars.html

Scott

My publisher and I are planning to put together a new electronic version of my
books to replace the current CD version (which has only the second edition of
EC++ and no copy of ESTL).  To that end, Addison-Wesley is soliciting input,
which their crack marketing team puts this way:

Help Addison-Wesley with NEW edition of C++ CD from Scott Meyers
With the successful publication of “Effective C++, Third Edition” Scott Meyers
and Addison-Wesley Professional are now planning to revise the CD based on that
work. To begin, we wish to survey both users and non-users to understand your
needs and desires for any new version.
User: If you are a current or past user of the CD, and you would like to help
guide its future development, we ask that you respond to the survey posted at
<http://survey.pearsoncmg.com/MEYERSS6.htm>http://survey.pearsoncmg.com/MEYERSS6\
.htm.
Non-User: If you haven’t used this CD in the past and would like to help guide
the development of a publication you might well find useful in your work, we ask
that you respond to the survey posted at
<http://survey.pearsoncmg.com/CPLUSNU6.htm>http://survey.pearsoncmg.com/CPLUSNU6\
.htm.
Not only will you have the opportunity to influence our decisions, but, complete
the survey today and receive a 50% off coupon from awprofessional.com and enter
for the chance to win your choice of either a one-year subscription to a Safari
MAX 30-slot Bookshelf or 12 Pearson Technology Group books of your choice.
Surveys end, October 13, 2006

I'd be grateful if you would take whichever of these surveys is appropriate for
you.  Both Addison-Wesley and I want to make sure we produce a product in
electronic form that will truly help you get the most out of the information in
my books.

Thanks,

Scott

This final list is a collection of my five personal most meaningful C++-related
"Aha!" moments.  You can find it at 
http://www.artima.com/cppsource/top_cpp_aha_moments.html .

Scott

This week's list is my picks for the five most important people in the history
of C++.  You can find it at  http://www.artima.com/cppsource/top_cpp_people.html
.

Scott

This week's list is my picks for the five most pieces of software in the history
of C++.  You can find it at 
http://www.artima.com/cppsource/top_cpp_software.html .

Scott

This week's list is my picks for the five most important non-book publications
in the history of C++.  You can find it at 
http://www.artima.com/cppsource/top_cpp_publications.html .

Scott

Yesterday I updated the web page describing my mailing list polices
(http://www.aristeia.com/MailingList/) to reflect a couple of things I've been
doing for a while, anyway.  First, I eliminated mention of "RFAs" (requests for
assistance), because I found that I could almost never bring myself to bother
you people with situations where I needed help.  (I ended up bothering other
people.)  Second, I no longer post to my mailing list when I make updates to my
publications' errata lists.  I used to batch the updates and post to the list
when I did a batch, but now I put updates online as issues come to me.  The
result is that there is no longer much of a delay between the time I know about
an issue and you can, but updates are now too frequent to fit into the
low-volume charter of this mailing list.  Probably the proper solution to this
problem is to have my web site offer an RSS feed for errata updates, but I
currently have neither the knowledge nor the time to implement such a feed, so
for the foreseeable future, the best way to find out whether there are any new
updates for my books or my CD is to check the appropriate web pages from time to
time.

Scott

For the next five weeks, I'll have a short article at The C++ Source (TCS --
http://www.artima.com/cppsource ) listing the 5 most important C++ somethings in
each of 5 categories.  The series is called "Five Lists of Five," and in Part 1,
I list what I consider to be the five most important C++ books of all time.  You
can find it at http://www.artima.com/cppsource/top_cpp_books.html .  Unlike most
of my writing on C++, this series isn't very technical, but I hope you find it
interesting enough to tune in each week to see what five things I've decided are
more important than all their peers.

Happy reading,

Scott

I've scheduled a number of talks on a variety of topics this fall near Portland,
Oregon and in Germany.   The details are available at my Upcoming Talks Page
(http://www.aristeia.com/seminars_frames.html), but the overall summary is shown
below:

20 Sep  Dresden, Germany          Better Software -- No Matter What
21 Sep  Dresden, Germany          Designing & Implementing Effective C++ Classes
22 Sep  Dresden, Germany          High-Performance C++ Programming
25 Sep  Stuttgart, Germany        What's New in Effective C++?
26 Sep  Stuttgart, Germany        Effective C++ in an Embedded Environment
27 Sep  Stuttgart, Germany        Design Patterns, Templates, and Policy-Based
Design
11 Oct  Portland, Oregon          The Keyhole Problem
26 Oct  Portland, Oregon          An Introduction to C++ Library Functionality
in TR1 and Boost
9  Nov  Beaverton, Oregon         Effective C++ in an Embedded Environment
27 Nov  Frankfurt/Main, Germany   Concepts and Architecture of the STL
28 Nov  Frankfurt/Main, Germany   Programmer Discretion and Software Quality

Also, I have a five-part C++-related article that will start appearing soon (I'd
hoped it would have started appearing by now).  I'll post details to this
mailing list when they are available, but I thought you might be interested to
know that I still do a little writing from time to time :-)

Scott

The latest book in my Effective Software Development Series has just been
published, Diomidis Spinellis' "Code Quality." This book is a companion to
Spinellis' earlier "Code Reading," but it also stands on its own.  It addresses
the "ilities" of quality software:  reliability, maintainability,
comprehensibility, etc, -- the non-functional aspects of quality.

Like "Code Reading," all the examples in the book are real and drawn from
open-source software projects.

I encourage you to check out "Code Quality." It's web site is
http://www.spinellis.gr/codequality/.

Scott

I've just updated my "Upcoming Talks" page
(http://www.aristeia.com/seminars_frames.html) to include public talks I'll be
giving in Oxford, England, in April and in Dresden and Stuttgart, Germany, in
September.  For details, check out the page and the links it contains.

I hope to see you at one or more events in 2006.

Scott

I've just updated the list of public and open-enrollment talks I'll be giving in
January, February, and March of next year.  All are near Portland, Oregon, or
Santa Clara, California.  There's quite a mix of topics, including a couple of
new talks I've never given before.  Details are available at the usual location:
http://www.aristeia.com/seminars.html.

I hope to see you at one or more talks next year.

Scott

Each time a new printing of one of my books comes out, I'm supposed to get
a copy.  Normally I do, but there are occasional snafus, and I recently
realized that I lack a copy of the 5th printing of Effective STL.  Worse
yet, my publisher is unable to find one.  I'd really like to have a copy of
the 5th printing, so if you have one, I have a deal for you.

I spent the last two days updating ESTL for the upcoming 7th printing (you
can check out the panoply of changes at
http://www.aristeia.com/BookErrata/estl1e-errata_frames.html), and I'm
willing to trade an autographed copy of the new printing (when it comes out
in a few weeks) for a copy of the 5th printing, ideally a 5th printing in
pristine condition -- no writing in or on it, no folded pages, etc.  If you
have such a printing and are interested in a trade, please let me know.

Thanks,

Scott

PS - The printing number is at the bottom of the copyright page.

A lot of my job is thinking about C++ programming and writing up my
thoughts.  Sometimes I get midway into a writing project, but, for one
reason or another, I abandon it before it's ready for publication.  In the
past, such not-ready-for-prime-time documents simply sat on my hard drive,
swirling round and round in the purgatory of perpetual unfinishedness.
Now, thanks to the wonder of web publishing, even stuff not worthy of
publication can be published!  (In my more cynical moods, I call such
publications "blogs.")

Today I made available on the web an annotated draft of an article I
started but now plan to never finish.  Here's an overview, taken from the
document I've made available:

   In the late summer of 2004, I became interested in identifying the best
   return type for factory functions.  I ultimately drafted an article on the
   topic, which I intended to submit for publication in some magazine.  I sent
   the draft to a number of people for comments, but then I got caught up in
   finishing Effective C++, Third Edition, and by the time I got back to the
   article, it was many months later.

   As I reviewed the article and the comments I'd received on it, I realized
   that (1) a lot of the material had been incorporated into the new version
   of Effective C++, where I'd done a better job writing it up, and (2)
   revising the article for publication and bringing it up to date would
   require more time and energy than I had available.  Still, I didn't want to
   abandon the article completely, because (1) I'd already put a lot of time
   and energy into it, and (2) I felt that some of the material -- notably the
   interactions of auto_ptr and tr1::shared_ptr -- continued to be worthwhile.
   I thus decided to annotate my November 2004 draft with comments on things
   I'd change if I were to revise the article for publication, then make the
   annotated draft available on the web.  The result is what you see below.

   ...

   I hope that the technical information in the draft is interesting and
   useful, but I also hope that this document sheds some light on the process
   of producing something ready for publication.

If you're interested in reading an article that, um, isn't really worthy of
your time, check out
http://www.aristeia.com/Papers/resourceReturnProblem.txt.

FWIW, I don't plan to make a habit of this.  I finish most things I start.

Scott

This November, the "C++ Connections" conference will take place in Las
Vegas.  The lineup for this show is very strong, and I'm not saying that
just because I'm both a speaker and a member of the Program Committee.
Microsoft is a major sponsor of the show, so there will be lots of C++/CLI
expertise there, but there will be lots of platform-independent material,
too.  The two talks I'll be giving (using the STL efficiently and modeling
memory-mapped IO) are listed at my "Upcoming Talks" page
(http://www.aristeia.com/seminars_frames.html), but I encourage you to take
a look at the full schedule at
http://www.cpp-connections.com/shows/cppfall2005/, because the variety and
quality of the talks and speakers is really quite remarkable.

There is no doubt that this event will be one of the strongest C++ events
in 2005 -- and probably 2004 and 2006, too.  If there is a chance that you
can participate, I encourage you to give it strong consideration.

Scott

On Wednesday, September 21, I'll be speaking at the Northwest C++ Users
Group in Bellevue, Washington.  The topic is "Two View of C++," and you can
get all the details at http://www.nwcpp.org/Meetings/2005/09.html.

I hope to see you there.

Scott

In the past, I've collected bug reports for my books and then updated the
web pages two or three times each year, posting to this mailing list the
latest changes to the errata pages.  This has been slightly less hassle for
me, but it's not been ideal for readers, who might go months without being
informed of errata that had been reported.

Since publication of EC++/3E, I've been trying to update the books' errata
pages on an ongoing basis, adding new issues as they come in.  This
essentially eliminates the time lag between a bug being reported and it
appearing at my web site, but because I don't want to increase the
frequency of postings to this mailing list, it means that I no longer have
an easy way to identify the latest bug reports to come in.

At some point, I hope to have a more sophisticated errata system that would
allow, for example, filtering errata based on when they were reported.  I'd
hoped that I could cajole Addison-Wesley into providing such a system for
use by all their authors, but it's become clear that that is unlikely to
happen.  For the time being, then, there will be no easy way to identify
the most recent additions to my books' errata lists.  On the plus side,
when you visit the errata lists, you should see a comprehensive listing of
all the issues that have been reported.

I hope you find the errata lists useful.  They're my Hall of Shame, but I
am always interested in comments on how my publications can be improved.

Scott

Two more interviews with me are now available:
   - Q&A with Bookpool customers: http://www.bookpool.com/ct/98031
   - Q&A with LinuxPlanet:
http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/interviews/5942/1/

Also, I've now updated the EC++/3E errata list with the latest bug reports
and "interesting comments."  It's at the usual place:
http://www.aristeia.com/BookErrata/ec++3e-errata_frames.html

Scott

As part of the rollout of the new edition of Effective C++, I've done a few
interviews, and a short one is now available at
http://techrepublic.com.com/5100-3513_11-5735561.html?tag=nl.e606

Also, I've posted the inevitable first set of errata for the book at
http://www.aristeia.com/BookErrata/ec++3e-errata_frames.html
Nothing too serious so far, I'm pleased to report.

Scott

Two more sample Items have now been made available.  One of them is Item 9
("Never call virtual functions during construction or destruction").  You
can get that via the Bookpool page for 3E (http://www.bookpool.com/ct/197),
where you can also read about how to win a chance to interview me.  They
apparently think this is something you might want to do :-) I don't get any
kind of kickback on purchases through Bookpool, but I can tell you that the
people there seem very, very nice, so I encourage you to check out their
site.

The other Item now available is at Addison-Wesley's page for 3E.  The Item
is #47 ("Use Use traits classes for information about types"), and the URL
is
http://www.awprofessional.com/content/images/0321334876/items/meyers_item47.pdf

Enjoy!

Scott

Now that the third edition of Effective C++ is done, I have time to turn my
attention to two other book-related issues, and I'd like your feedback.

- ELECTRONIC PUBLICATION.  We'd like to come out with a new electronic
   version of all three of my books to replace the current CD (which has
   only two books on it).  Any comments you have on the proper format and
   feature set for such a product would be most welcome.  Should we again
   use an HTML-based approach on CD?  Should we go with PDF instead?  Is
   there some other format or delivery mechanism that would be most useful?
   Please let me know your thoughts on how you'd like to electronic versions
   of my books made available.

- ERRATA LISTS.  Currently, my book errata lists are hand-coded HTML.  It's
   so primitive, it's not even retro.  It's ugly, you can't do things like
   search for all entries for a particular page or printing or made after a
   certain date, etc.  It is, quite honestly, an embarrassment, but it's
   easy for me to maintain, there are only so many hours in a day, and one
   has to prioritize, etc.  Still, I'd like to do better.  If you have a
   suggested way to approach this problem, or if you know of errata sites
   for other books/CDs/etc. that do this particularly well, please let me
   know.

Thanks,

Scott

Addison-Wesley has just made Item 27 from EC++/3E ("Minimize Casting")
available for download at
http://www.awprofessional.com/content/images/0321334876/items/meyers_item27.pdf.
This means that in approximately 8 minutes, I should start getting bug
reports...

Scott

Just a quick note to let you know that I sent final camera-ready copy of
the third edition of Effective C++ to my publisher last week.  I expect
physical books to exist in bookstores around the end of May.  Between now
and then, there will be sample Items posted at various locations, and it
looks like at least one will appear as an article in DDJ.  I'll make
announcements here when those things happen.

Sample Items and magazine articles are part of a marketing campaign
designed to whip you into a buying frenzy, but if you're already gripped by
frenzy and like to order books from Amazon, I'd appreciate it if you'd do
it via the following link, because then I get a small kickback from Amazon.
(The cover image, ISBN, and ordering information for the book is correct,
but most of the textual information (e.g., reviews) at that site is for the
second edition, not the third, sigh.)

  
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0321334876/ref=ase_scottmeyersho-2\
0/103-3864411-8060659?v=glance&s=books

I can't in good conscience fail to note that you can buy it for less at the
Addison-Wesley web site, where I don't get a kickback, but where the
supporting information corresponds to the new edition.  The URL for that is

   http://www.awl.com/cseng/titles/0-321-33487-6/

I hope you enjoy the third edition of Effective C++.  It's a significant
update, as you'll be able to see from the information at the AW web site.

Scott

Two things:
   - New training partnership with DevelopMentor.
   - September talks in Ludwigsburg, Germany.

TRAINING PARTNERSHIP

For some time now, demand for my training services has outstripped my
availability, and I've been looking for a way to address this mismatch
without compromising quality.  I ultimately decided to enter into a
partnership with DevelopMentor, a training company I've known since
1995.  I've worked with the DevelopMentor people as a class instructor, as
a class attendee, and as a provider of training materials, and I've always
been impressed with their way of treating people (well), the quality of the
training they provide (high), and their commitment to maintaining these
ideals (consistent).  As a result of the partnership, DevelopMentor will
have exclusive access to my training materials and will be able to offer my
courses using instructors I've personally approved.  Their web site is
http://develop.com/ and their main page for my courses is
http://develop.com/us/technology/technology.aspx?tech=7


SEPTEMBER TALKS IN GERMANY

As I've done for the past several years, I'll be giving a week of talks in
Germany in the fall.  The talks themselves will be in English, though, if
you are particularly unlucky, I may try to speak to you in German if you
are there.  You'll find a list of the talks at the usual place:

   http://www.aristeia.com/seminars.html

Scott

I just updated the errata pages for MEC++ and ESTL.  You'll find them at
the usual places
(http://www.aristeia.com/BookErrata/mec++-errata_frames.html and
http://www.aristeia.com/BookErrata/estl1e-errata_frames.html), but the new
entries are as follows:

For MEC++:

     DATE                                                                  DATE
   REPORTED WHO PAGES  WHAT                                                FIXED
   -------- --- -----  ------------------------------------------------  --------
    9/16/04  fb  Many  Many single-argument constructors in the book
                       would best be declared explicit.  [This bug
                       report should be combined with sk's existing
                       3/5/96 Interesting Comment on the same topic.]

    1/22/05  tk   54   As noted above by cc about page 50, fully
                       constructed objects will be automatically
                       destroyed if an exception is thrown, but this
                       guarantee applies to local (i.e., auto) objects
                       only if the exception is caught.  Add a footnote
                       alluding to the footnote on pg. 50.

   10/27/04  ms   67   In 1st para, should also mention that a catch
                       clause for runtime_error can also catch
                       underflow_error exceptions.

    9/12/04  nd   70   In code at bottom of page, both "what" member
                       functions should be declared const.

    9/12/04  nd  71-2  Once the decision to catch by reference has been
                       made, a decision must be made about whether to
                       catch by refernce-to-const.  As always, const
                       should be used unless the handler needs to be
                       able to modify the exception object.

    8/24/04  ms   155  HeapTracked::operator delete incorrectly throws
                       an exception if asked to delete the null pointer.
                       It should do nothing in that case.


For ESTL:

     DATE                                                                  DATE
   REPORTED WHO PAGES  WHAT                                                FIXED
   -------- --- -----  ------------------------------------------------  --------
    9/18/04 dxm    44  The comment next to the call to remove_copy_if
                       near the bottom of the page could suggest that
                       values are removed from c before copying them to
                       goodValues.  In fact, c is not modified at all;
                       undesired values are simply skipped during the
                       copy.  Reword.

   12/21/04 nds    67  In the description for resize, it's not true that
                       if n is less than the current size, new
                       default-constructed elements will be added.
                       Rather <em>copies</em> of a single
                       default-constructed element will be added.


Scott

The latest book in my Effective Software Development Series, Bill Wagner's
Effective C#, has recently been published, leading me to hope that people
will stop asking me when I'm going to write it :-) I learned a lot from
reading it, and I think you will, too.  For details on the book, check it
out at AW (http://www.awprofessional.com/title/0321245660) or Amazon
(http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0321245660/qid=1105253646/sr=8-1/\
ref=pd_ka_1/104-5668479-8651933?v=glance&s=books&n=507846).

You might also want to check out my updated "Upcoming Talks" page at
http://www.aristeia.com/seminars_frames.html, because there are five new
listings for March (four at the Software Development conference).

I wish you all a happy, healthy, and prosperous 2005,

Scott

After I announced the existence of my new training course, "What's New in
Effective C++?", several people wrote to ask when it would be available for
enrollment.  One thing led to another, and now I've scheduled two new
open-enrollement seminars at OGI (in Beaverton, Oregon) in January:

   18 Jan 2005:  Better Software -- No Matter What
   19 Jan 2005:  What's New in Effective C++?

You'll find links to all the details on these seminars (as well as to the 15
December offering of "Effective C++ in an Embedded Environment") at my "Upcoming
Talks" page, http://www.aristeia.com/seminars_frames.html

I hope to see you at one or more of these seminars.

Scott

I'm making decent headway on the next edition of Effective C++, but I have
a problem: I need to find a few good pre-publication reviewers to read my
draft and tell me how I can improve it.  Now, I know all kinds of C++
experts, but the target audience for my book isn't experts, it's practicing
programmers who are at roughly an intermediate level of knowledge and
experience with the language.  As somebody who subscribes to this mailing
list, it is highly likely that you do NOT qualify; you already know too
much.  However, perhaps you know somebody who might qualify, somebody who
is comfortable with the basics of C++, but who is interested in knowing
more.  If you do, and if that person would be willing to undertake the hard
work of reading 250-300 pages of not-fully-refined prose and offer detailed
suggestions on how the book could be improved (without regard for whether
they will hurt my feelings -- I *need* to know the bad stuff), and if that
person would be available for the task beginning sometime in January and
ending no more than about a month later, I'd appreciate it if you'd have
them contact me.

I don't need very many people for this -- maybe 2 or 3.  My preference is
to have a small number of high-quality reviewers rather than a large number
of poorer-quality reviewers.  But my need for this small number of
high-quality reviewers is great, because I can't produce a book that's
truly useful to its target audience if I don't get advance feedback from
people in that audience.  Experts can help me identify subtle coding or
reasoning errors, but non-experts can tell me "I have no idea what you are
talking about in this paragraph," and that's the kind of thing I really
need to know.

There's no monetary compensation for this work.  Rather, people who do it
get (1) a chance to make a real impact on the final version of the book,
(2) an autographed copy of the final book, possibly with a custom cover
that only a few people will get (I'm not sure about that last part, I have
to work it out with my publisher), and (3) my sincere gratitude.

People who are interested should contact me directly.

Thanks very much for your help with this.

Scott

I've added a new course to my "Training" page
(http://www.aristeia.com/whatsNewInEC_frames.html).  It's a much more
detailed description of the "What's New in Effective C++?" seminar, which I
debuted last month in Germany.  Good course, in my opinion, but I can't
claim to be fully objective :-)

BTW, if you took a look at my "Project Ideas" page
(http://www.aristeia.com/projects_frames.html) immediately after I sent out
the announcement about it, you may have missed the "Lint with autofix" and
"Detailed Exhibit Information" ideas that I added a few hours later.  If
so, I encourage you to check out those projects now, as I'm especially
eager to see somebody pursue them.

Scott

From time to time, I come up with ideas for projects or articles that I'd
like to pursue, but which I know in my heart of hearts I'll never find time
for.  Rather than let the ideas wither and die in my "Stuff I'd like to do
but never will" folder, I decided to put them at my web site, with the hope
that somebody else will pursue them and write up the results.  You can find
the initial list of project ideas at
http://www.aristeia.com/projects_frames.html.  Have at it!

Scott