I mentioned in a July message that the debut of my new training course on C++0x
would take place in late September, and that debut has now taken place.  The
course was a lot of fun, but I was surprised to discover that the quantity and
depth of the material requires substantially more time to cover than I'd
anticipated.  I've hence extended the course from two to three days, although a
two-day version is still available.  (It omits most coverage of TR1-based
library components.)

The public world debut of the new "extended dance remix" version of my overview
of C++0x will take place in Bellevue, Washington, in early December.  Details
are available at http://construx.com/Page.aspx?nid=17&id=115 . I hope to see you
there.

Scott

You may be familiar with O'Reilly's "97 Things" series, which currently consists
of "97 Things Every Software Architect Should Know" (
http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596522698/ ) and "97 Things Every Project Manager
Should Know" ( http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596804169/ ).  There's now a
programmer-centric version in the works under the editorship of Kevlin Henney:
"97 Things Every Programmer Should Know;" wiki at
http://programmer.97things.oreilly.com/wiki/index.php/97_Things_Every_Programmer\
_Should_Know .

I was asked to write a contribution for this project, so I decided to revise my
2004 IEEE Software article to fit the "97 Things" length restriction of 500
words.  The result is at
http://programmer.97things.oreilly.com/wiki/index.php/Make_Interfaces_Easy_to_Us\
e_Correctly_and_Hard_to_Use_Incorrectly .  I hope you like this concentrated
version of my advice to "Make Interfaces easy to use correctly and hard to use
incorrectly," and I encourage you to look over the other articles at the
project's site -- and possibly even add your own.

Scott

The fine folks at Construx Software in Bellevue, Washington, and I have teamed
up to schedule my new two-day intensive overview of C++0x on December 1-2. 
Details are available at http://construx.com/Page.aspx?nid=17&id=115 .  This
will be the first public presentation of the seminar in North America, and it
will benefit from the improvements I'll make after its world debut in Stuttgart,
Germany, at the end of September (
http://www.qasystems.de/html/deutsch/seminare/seminardetail/seminardetail14.php
), as well as whatever updates I make following the next C++ Standardization
meeting in October.

I hope to see you in Bellevue (or Stuttgart!) to talk lambdas, rvalue
references, hash tables, regular expressions, variadic templates, attributes,
and a whole lot more.

Scott

I've just completed development of a new C++ training course, this one on the
new features in C++0x (the forthcoming revised standard for C++).  My original
plan had been to develop a one-day seminar, but it turns out that C++0x has so
many new features, trying to describe and explore even the "primary" ones in
only one day just isn't possible.  So the course runs two days.  Furthermore,
recent compiler releases (e.g., VC10, which is now in publicly available beta,
and gcc 4.4) support a surprisingly large number of C++0x features, so even as
the C++ standardization committee hammers out the final details of the next
version of C++, you can start getting experience with parts of the enhanced
language and standard library right now.  If my experience is any indication,
your new best friend in C++0x will be "auto," and, especially if you're doing
multithreaded programming, you're likely to develop a serious fondness for
lambdas.

The new course is described at http://www.aristeia.com/C++0x.html , and its
public world premiere will take place in Stuttgart, Germany, at the end of
September (link available at http://www.aristeia.com/seminars.html ).  If you're
interested in knowing more about the course or if you'd like to consider booking
it for presentation at your company, let me know.

Scott

The talk I gave at the February Tools of Change in Publishing conference is now
available at http://blip.tv/file/1976570 .  It's aimed at people in the
publishing industry, so it's not terribly technical, but if you're interested in
my take on what authors need to think about when writing for multiple output
devices, you might want to take a look.  (An alternative is to look through the
entries of my blog for Fastware! at http://fastwareproject.blogspot.com/ .)

Speaking of having book content available on multiple devices, I've recently
discovered that some of my books are available on electronic devices other than
Kindle.  This was news not just to me, but also to my editor, so we're in the
process of trying to figure out what's available where and why.  Our goal is to
make everything available everywhere.  Once I have a clearer picture of the
availability of my books on different devices, I'll post details to this list.

Scott

My annual collaboration with QA Systems in Germany will continue this year in
Stuttgart with a five-day schedule that includes two new seminars, one on C++0x,
the other a generalization of my "High-Performance C++ Programming" seminar
called "Fastware with C++."  Dates are in September and October, and you can
find all the details at my Upcoming Talks page,
http://www.aristeia.com/seminars.html .

New this year is a series of four technical seminars in Vienna (Wien) in June,
including my language-independent presentation on producing high-quality
software, as well as three in-depth C++ topics.  The topics I'll discuss in
Vienna are different from those I'll address in Stuttgart.  These seminars are
also in collaboration with QA Systems, and details are available at
http://www.aristeia.com/seminars.html .

I hope to see you in Vienna or Stuttgart...or both!

Scott

Executive Summary:  my books are now available as DRM-free PDFs, for the Kindle,
or via Safari for both online viewing and PDF download.  You now have multiple
options for reading my "Effective" books without harming any trees.

* * * * *

[DRM-Free PDFs]

I've mentioned in the past that I've been working on PDF versions of my books. 
Those are now available, DRM-free and chock-full of linked navigation in all the
ways I believe you have a right to expect:  tables of contents, indices,
cross-references, URLs, mailtos, the whole nine yards.  In fact, they've been
available since October, but I've held off officially announcing them until now,
because there were a few bureaucratic loose ends that didn't get tied up until
last week.  Information on the PDFs is available at
http://scottmeyers-ebooks.com/ .

[Kindle]

Unbeknownst to me until about an hour ago, two of my books -- Effective C++ and
Effective STL -- are now available for Amazon's Kindle.  I haven't seen these
editions myself, so I can't tell you anything about them.  Since I don't have a
Kindle, this is unlikely to change anytime soon.  If you try these editions,
please let me know what you think of them.  You'll find links to the Kindle
editions of these books at http://www.aristeia.com/books.html .

[Safari]

My books have been available for online viewing via Safari for a while, but only
last week did I learn that Safari also sells PDF versions for download.  These
PDFs were prepared without my involvement, and I haven't yet seen them myself,
but my guess is that they will offer fewer features than the PDFs I mentioned
above.   They may be priced more attractively, however.  The entrée to the world
of Safari is http://www.safaribooksonline.com/ .


I'll do my best to keep my books page ( http://www.aristeia.com/books.html ) up
to date regarding the various delivery options for my books, but sometimes new
editions come out without my knowing about it.  (The author is always the last
to know!)  If you find a version not listed at my site, please tell me about it.

Personally, I find that print and electronic versions of books have
complementary strengths and weaknesses, so I'm pleased that my books are now
offered in so many formats.  I hope you'll take a look at the options available
and, if you try one or more of the non-print versions, let me know how you like
them.  For the book I'm working on now (check out http://fastwarebook.com/ --
which needs a lot of work, sigh -- if you are interested), my plan is to target
electronic publication as the primary delivery mechanism, so I'm quite
interested in what works and what doesn't.

Scott

I'll be giving my two-day intensive seminar on making effective use of C++ in
embedded systems on March 30-31 in Beaverton, Oregon.  Details are available at
http://www.cpd.ogi.edu/coursespecific.asp?pam=2457 .  This is one of my favorite
training courses, because the topics range from the very lowest level language
issues (e.g., what is the cost of using various C++ features?, what's a good way
to model memory-mapped IO?) to higher-level process issues (e.g., how can we
approach the development of real-time and safety-critical systems in C++?).  If
you're interested in the use of C++ for developing embedded software, I hope
you'll consider attending this seminar.

Scott

On February 10, I'll be giving a talk at the "Tools of Change" publishing
conference.  The topic is "Authoring Challenges in a Multiplatform World." As
the conference and talk title should suggest, it's not a talk about software
development, it's a talk about what I think authors need to worry about as we
make the transition from paper-based publication to a mix of paper and
electronic reading devices.  If you've been reading my Fastware! blog (
http://fastwareproject.blogspot.com/ ), you'll have a good idea of the flavor of
the talk.  Links to the conference and the talk description are at my Upcoming
Talks page:  http://www.aristeia.com/seminars.html

In March, I'll be making my usual visit to the Software Development conference
in Santa Clara, CA, where I'll be giving one full-day language-independent
tutorial on software quality and three shorter hard-core C++ talks.  Links to
the conference and talk descriptions are also at my Upcoming Talks page: 
http://www.aristeia.com/seminars.html

I hope to see you at one or both events.

Scott

I've started a blog for discussion of issues related to the book I'm working on
called "Fastware!" The book itself is about how to produce software systems that
are fast, but the issues I'm currently addressing in the blog are about the
writing itself rather than the technical content.  I hope to move on to
content-related topics before too long, but first I have some authoring problems
to resolve.  I encourage you to take a look at the blog at
http://fastwareproject.blogspot.com/ and offer comments on the issues I raise
there.  (Currently, there are only two entries, but tomorrow is another day.) 
My conversations with authors and publishers have not been terribly helpful in
resolving the questions I'm wrestling with, so I'm hoping that by exposing these
issues to the world at large, I'll get feedback that will help me produce a book
that's well suited to the future of publishing as well as the past.

Please let others know about this blog if you think they are likely to be
interested in authoring issues (now) or speed-related issues (later).

Thanks,

Scott

The C++ Source has just published a new article of mine, "Enforcing Code Feature
Requirements in C++." You'll find it at
http://www.artima.com/cppsource/codefeatures.html .  Here's the summary from the
top of the article:

>Functions often depend on particular behavioral characteristics
>(“features”) of code they invoke. For example, thread-safe code must
>invoke only thread-safe code if it is to remain thread-safe, and
>exception-safe code must invoke only exception-safe code. This paper
>describes a technique that enables the specification of arbitrary
>combinations of user-defined code features on a per-function basis and
>that detects violations of feature constraints during compilation. The
>technique applies to member functions (both nonvirtual and virtual),
>non-member functions, and function templates; operators are excluded.

The article has a definite "researchy" feel to it (you may sense that from the
summary above), and in fact I originally wrote it for publication in the
academic community.  Still, I think the ideas and techniques it describes are
relevant to many problems C++ developers regularly confront.

The research behind the article took over a year (off and on), and the article
itself was extensively modified twice (essentially rewritten) before it got into
its current form, so it represents a lot of work on my part.  I'm pleased with
the way things turned out.  I hope you find it interesting.

Scott

Last month I mentioned that a video interview I gave in March had been broken
into four parts and was being posted piecemeal.  All four parts are now
available, and you can find links to them at my "Articles and Interviews" page,
http://www.aristeia.com/publications.html .

Scott

A significantly revised version of my web site has just been installed, and,
with any luck, you won't notice a thing.  The fundamental look and content has
not been changed.  Under the hood, however, much is different.  Frames are gone,
and that means that bookmarking and printing should work a lot better.  Most
pages are now standards-conformant, and the few that are not (typically those
with tables that were tricky to replace with CSS) will be soon (I hope). 
Cross-browser compatibility should be better.  Fundamentally, all the stuff that
used to work should continue to work, and many things that didn't work before
should work now.

Included among the old things that should continue to work are URLs.  It really
makes my blood boil when I bookmark a page at a site and later find that the URL
I saved is broken, because the webmorons maintaining the site couldn't be
bothered to ensure that old URLs remained valid when said morons decided to
reorganize.  One of my primary constraints during the work on my web site was
that old URLs should continue to work, and one of the reasons I'm telling you
about the revised plumbing is that I'd like you to tell me if any URLs into my
site that used to work don't any more.  If an old URL fails to work, that's a
bug, and we'll do our best to fix it pronto.

If you happen to notice any other implementation aspect of the revised site that
isn't what it should be, please let me know.  I welcome comments on content,
too, but my focus right now is on getting the HTML and CSS, etc., working the
way it should be.

Thanks,

Scott

In March, Addison-Wesley asked Ted Neward to interview me about the forthcoming
electronic versions of my books as well as about my thoughts on C++0x, and that
interview has now been chopped into four pieces and scheduled for publication in
both audio and video podcast form.  The first two parts (covering my thoughts on
electronic publication) are now available:

   Audio form:  http://www.podango.com/podcast/2243/OnSoftware_audio
   Video form:  http://www.podango.com/podcast/2066/OnSoftware_video

You should be aware that the audio form is simply the audio track of the video
form.  Unfortunately, the video form shows the interview topic and names of the
participants only through video, so if you listen to the audio only, it'll be
easiest to understand if you note the topic and names (Ted Neward and me) in
advance.

The remaining two parts of the interview will be published on June 17 and 24,
and there are RSS feeds at the site so you can arrange for automatic
notification, if you like.

Incidentally, the PDF versions of my books are currently undergoing final QA,
and I'm hoping they'll become available later this month.  That's a couple of
months later than we'd originally planned, but we've been addressing  more
"issues" than we anticipated during their preparation, most arising from
"undocumented features" in several tools we've been using.  We've also had to
wrangle with the usual impossible things taking place -- you know, the stuff
that just seems to happen when doing anything software-intensive the first time
around.

I hope you enjoy the podcasts.

Scott

On Tuesday, May 20, I'll be giving a talk at the Northwest C++ Users Group in
Redmond, Washingon.  I'll be describing a fully compile-time mechanism for
enforcing arbitrary code constraints.  It's an updated version of a talk I gave
at the Users Group last year and at the Software Development Conference earlier
this year.  The current approach checks everything during compilation,
approximates support for contravariant constraints down an inheritance
hierarchy, and allows overloading on constraint sets.  I think it's kind of
nifty.

Details are available at http://www.nwcpp.org/Meetings/2008/05.html .  I hope to
see you there.

Scott

It's hard to believe it's been nearly six months since I first wrote about the
forthcoming availability of my books in electronic form.  We've done a lot of
work since then, and the PDFs are nearly completed. Initial availability is
expected to be next month.  We've largely hewed to the plan I posted in October,
but we did make one major change:  the PDFs will use no DRM.  Instead, we'll
rely on "personalization" technology that adds purchaser information (e.g.,
their name) to the PDFs when they are purchased.  Presumably, this will
discourage people from posting their PDFs on the Internet.

The lack of DRM means you can put copies of the PDFs you buy on all your
machines, you can annotate and print them to your heart's content, you can
access them through desktop search tools, etc.  In other words, you can
literally (and legally) do pretty much all the things with your PDF copies of my
books that I can, as long as the result is for your personal use.  I've attached
a marketing flyer that gives more information about the electronic versions of
my books and also gives an email address to write to if you'd like to be
notified when they become available.

* * * * *

For the tenth year in a row, I'll be presenting a series of technical seminars
in Europe in the fall.  This year all the talks will be in Stuttgart, and one of
the highlights will be my recently-developed two-day course on making effective
use of C++ in embedded systems.  You can find links to all the seminars at my
Upcoming Talks page, http://www.aristeia.com/seminars.html .

Thanks for your continuing interest in my work.

Scott

The Software Development conference in Santa Clara, California, is taking place
earlier than usual this year (the first week of March), and I'm slated to give
two full-day tutorials and three shorter talks during the three days I'll be
there.  You'll find a summary of the topics I'll be speaking about at my
"Upcoming Talks" page (http://www.aristeia.com/seminars_frames.html).  You may
be especially interested in my "C++ Double Feature" talk, which, though
incorporating some material I've presented a couple of times before, is
essentially brand new.

I hope to see you at Software Development in March.

Scott

I'm currently working with my publisher on the preparation of PDF versions of my
books, which we hope to make available (i.e, for sale) within the next couple of
months.  We have a pretty good idea of what we're going to be offering, but
we're still tinkering with the details, and I'd be interested in any suggestions
you'd care to offer.

The basic plan is to offer the complete books (front cover to back cover) in PDF
protected by fairly lax DRM.  The existence of DRM means you'll have to use a
reader that supports that DRM, the most common choice probably being Acrobat
Reader.   You can expect:
- The ability to have each ebook on several machines simultaneously.  Each PDF
file is licensed for one user, but that user will have the ability to put copies
on multiple machines.  A copy at work, home, and on a laptop will be no problem.
- The ability to print your copy of each ebook.
- The ability to copy material out of the ebook, except that you will probably
be limited to no more than 30 copy operations in each 30-day period.
- All URLs and intra-book cross-references will be live links.  So TOC and index
entries will be live, cross-references among book Items will be live, etc.
- The PDF you download will be the current version.  I often make small updates
between printings, and if I've submitted the PDF for printing n of the book to
the publisher, you'll download that version, even if the printing still
available in hardcopy bookstores is n-1.
- Books with text in two colors (EC++ and ESTL) will have text in two colors. 
(This may seem obvious, but tell that to the people who scan my books and post
illegal copies on the internet, sigh.)
- All photos in the books that are in black and white will be in color.  Okay,
there's only one photo, and it's of Persephone (our late dog), but it will be in
color!
- All the usual PDF features, e.g., full-text searching, cross-platform support,
pan and zoom, etc.

As I said, that's the basic plan.  If you have suggestions for things we should
add or should avoid, especially if it's based on your experience with other PDF
ebooks, and most especially if it's based on experience with other PDF versions
of Addison-Wesley books, please let me know.  Suggestions most likely to be
adopted will require little or no human intervention, so asking for things like
live links between books (which do not exist in the printed books, because I
want all the books to stand on their own) are likely to be noted, logged, and
not acted upon, at least not for the initial release of the books in this form. 
We'll revisit such suggestions if we decide to do something more ambitious in
the future.

Thanks in advance for your feedback.  We're hoping to do a really nice job with
these ebooks, and with your help, we will.

Scott

In March of this year I was interviewed for OnSoftware by Chuck Allison at the
Software Development conference in California.  The interview was chopped into
three pieces and, I found out just today, posted in late August and early
September.   Topics discussed include how I got into C++, my view on the proper
role of the language, its use in embedded systems, template metaprogramming, new
features in C++0x, and general principles for improving software quality. 
You'll find links to each of the three videos at my publications page
(http://www.aristeia.com/publications_frames.html) and also at the main
OnSoftware page
(http://www.informit.com/podcasts/channel.aspx?c=dadf92ca-3bdc-484e-9cd8-cbfe0cf\
c0de6).

I haven't watched myself on video much, so I was surprised to see how much I
look around while talking.  I mentioned this to my wife, and she simply looked
at me and said "Well, duh."

I hope you like the video interview.

Scott

In June I announced that I'd be participating in The Astoria Seminar, an
intensive C++ event taking place September 24-26 in Astoria, Oregon.  I noted
that the event was limited to 55 attendees, so the attendee-speaker ratio was
guaranteed to be 11:1 or less.  Right now, there are still a fair number of
spots open, so it's looking likely that the attendee-speaker ratio will be well
under 11:1.

I can't predict the future, but I think it's highly unlikely you'll ever get
another chance to attend an event with this kind of access to Andrei
Alexandrescu, Dave Abrahams, Walter Bright, Eric Niebler, and me.  If you've
been thinking about attending the seminar, but have been undecided, I encourage
you to give it serious consideration.  I really do think it's likely to be a
one-of-a-kind event.

For details on the Astoria Seminar, visit http://www.astoriaseminar.com/ .

Scott

On September 23-26 in Astoria, Oregon, I'll be participating in a C++ event that
I hope you'll find intriguing.  The event is kind of hard to describe, because
it's sort of a conference, sort of a workshop, sort of a party.

Fundamentally, five people who know more about C++ than is probably healthy --
Andrei Alexandrescu, Dave Abrahams, Walter Bright, Eric Niebler, and me -- are
going to get together at a boutique hotel (the Hotel Elliot) and nifty meeting
space (the Banker's Suite) and talk serious C++ with the 55 people who choose to
attend.  Breakfast is provided, so the talk starts early.  After breakfast,
there will be some lecturing or interactive workshops (depending on who's
running the session).  Topics are all over the C++ map:  memory management,
expression templates, callbacks for C APIs, compiler internals, generic program
design.  Then we'll have lunch. It's also provided, so there will be no
interruption to the flow of the conversation.  After lunch, it's back to
immersive technical sessions.  We'll all need a break after that, but in the
evenings something really interesting happens:  we all return to the Banker's
Suite to hang out and talk.  Or code.  Or whatever.  No formal sessions are
scheduled, but all five of us will be there, so if you want to talk code
generation with Walter, he'll be happy to do it.  Want Eric to explain
expression templates to you -- or maybe his compile-time regex engine?  He's on
board with that.  Wonder what Andrei is doing for his PhD research or what new
tricks Dave has in mind for his Boost Python library?  Ask 'em.  I'll be there,
too, telling you what new book I'm hoping to write.  (I'm always hoping to write
a new book, so this topic is always valid :-})

If this sounds like your kind of event, I encourage you to visit the Seminar web
site to learn more:  http://www.astoriaseminar.com/ .  Please note that
attendance is limited to 55, and we're not kidding, because the space won't hold
any more than that.  This suggests that if you're interested, you'd best sign up
soon.

Astoria, by the way, is near the mouth of the Columbia River, so if you or your
family like the idea of a few days in a cute town near the Pacific Ocean, this
could be an opportunity for you to, er, photograph two seagulls with one camera
:-)  The Seminar's evening hang-out sessions are optional and unstructured, so
if you'd rather build sand castles on the beach until the sun goes down (or
roast hot dogs and marshmallows on driftwood fires after it does), you can do
that, too.

Scott

I'll be giving a talk for the Northwest C++ Users Group on some recent work I've
been doing that actually borders on research.  The fundamental idea is to find a
way to partition code such that calls can cross partition boundaries only if
certain conditions are satisfied.  For example, thread-safe code would not be
able to call thread-unsafe code without explicit permission, ditto for
exception-safe code, etc.  Users can define their own partition boundaries (e.g.
Scott's code should not be able to call Jill's code) , and, this being C++, the
rules should, as much as possible, be enforced during compilation.  The talk is
called "Red Code, Green Code:  generalizing const."

Details are available at http://www.nwcpp.org/Meetings/2007/04.html .  I hope to
see you there.

Scott

In May, I'll be speaking at the first Boost conference, to be held in Aspen. 
I'll be giving a full-day tutorial on TR1 and some Boost libraries.   The
conference site is http://www.boostcon.com/home .

In September, I'll be making my annual trip to Germany to speak on a variety of
C++ and software development topics.  I'm especially excited about my seminar on
applying C++ in embedded systems, because this year it's two days long instead
of one.

You'll find details on these talks at the usual place: 
http://www.aristeia.com/seminars_frames.html

I hope to see you at one of these events.

Scott

The recording of today's webinar on the implementation of virtual functions
under multiple inheritance is now available.  It's a little over an hour long. 
There are two ways to view it.  You can stream it from http://tinyurl.com/ydefmj
or you can download it (about 150MB) from http://www.aristeia.com/shakedown2.wrf
.  The .wrf format requires the Webex player, which I believe will be
automatically downloaded and installed if you stream.  If you choose to download
the file and play it locally, you may have to download and install the player
yourself;  it's available at http://tinyurl.com/yk37c9 .

This recording is part of my webinar shakedown process, so I very much welcome
all comments.  Good or bad, I'd like to know what you think about getting and
viewing the recording as well as about anything in the recording or the webinar
itself.  I want to learn how to make webinars and their recordings as effective
and useful as possible, so the more information I get from you, the better job I
can do.

Thanks for your help.

Scott

This is a quick note for people who are interested in participating in
Thursday's VoIP-based webinar.  I've just found out that Webex supports VoIP
audio *only on Windows*.  You may be able to hear and/or speak using other OSes,
but for best results, please try to participate under Windows.  (On an
experiment I performed recently with a colleague on a Mac, he was able to hear
me, but I could not hear him.)

I apologize for not knowing about this restriction earlier, but these are
shakedown webinars.  This is one of the things that just got shaken loose.

Thanks,

Scott

To register for the second shakedown webinar on January 11 (covering the
implementation of virtual functions under multiple inheritance) click on

   https://eval.webex.com/eval/j.php?ED=89967787&RG=1

Fill out the required fields, and click "Register Now."  Webex will
send you email telling you how to join the meeting when it starts.

Compared to the first webinar, I plan to make the following changes:
- Audio will be available only via VoIP.  You'll need a headset or speakers
   to hear the presentation and a microphone to speak.
- I'll record the webinar and make it available for viewing later.

A PDF copy of the materials I'll be presenting is available now at
https://eval.webex.com/meet/scott_meyers28 ; click on the "Files" tab.
You may wish to print a copy and have it available during the talk.

The presentation will start promptly at 10:00AM Pacific time on January 11.
Before you can join, you'll need to make sure that the Webex MeetingManager
software has been installed.  This should happen automatically when you
join the meeting (nobody reported problems last week), but you may want to
install the software in advance by following this link:

   https://eval.webex.com/eval/meetingcenter/mcsetup.php

I'll be in the virtual meeting room about 5 minutes before the presentation
starts to give a brief overview of the Webex features you're most likely to
find useful, e.g., how to raise your virtual hand, how to send text
messages during the talk, how to disable live video of me, etc.

I look forward to having you in the webinar on January 11 and getting your
feedback after it's over.  If you have any problems or questions about
signing up for the webinar, let me know: smeyers@....

Thanks,

Scott

To register for the shakedown webinar on January 4 (covering the
implementation of virtual functions under single inheritance) click on
this link,

   https://eval.webex.com/eval/j.php?ED=89939522&RG=1

fill out the required fields, then click "Register Now."  Shortly
thereafter, Webex will send you email telling you how to join the
meeting when it starts.

The presentation itself will start promptly at 10:00AM Pacific time on
January 4, but before you can join, you'll need to make sure that the
Webex MeetingManager software has been installed.  This is supposed to
happen automatically when you join the meeting, but I'm believer in
taking steps to thwart Murphy, so I encourage you to install the
software in advance by following this link:

   https://eval.webex.com/eval/meetingcenter/mcsetup.php

Installing this software in advance will also speed your entry to the
meeting, because there will be no need to download and install the
MeetingManager at that time (unless they've done an upgrade in the
interim, which is always possible...).

My expectation is that many of you have never used Webex before, so
I'll be in the virtual meeting room about 10 minutes before the
presentation starts to give a brief overview of the Webex features
you're most likely to find useful, e.g., how to raise your virtual
hand, how to send text messages during the talk, how to modify the
Webex screen layout, etc.  (Unbelievably, Webex has no canned video
explaining this stuff.)

My understanding is that there is no limit to the number of people who
can attend this webinar, but only the first 125 people to call in to
the meeting will be able to speak.  Anybody beyond that will be able
to hear, but not speak, though everybody in the meeting will always be
able to use text messages to submit comments and questions during the
presentation.  Calling in to the phone bridge (audio portion of the
webinar) should be toll-free from a variety of countries; a link to
country-specific situations will be included in the email you get
after you register.

I look forward to having you in the webinar on January 4.  Please
remember to show up about 10 minutes early if you want to have me
explain the basics of the Webex client interface.

If you have any problems or questions about signing up for the
webinar, let me know:  smeyers@....

Thanks,

Scott

Executive Summary:  I'll be holding free online webinars on January 4 and 11 to
evaluate webinar technology.  The webinars will cover the implementation of
virtual functions under single and multiple inheritance.


"Webinars" are live seminars broadcast over the Internet.  At their best,
webinars give me a way to offer an experience akin to a face-to-face seminar,
but without the need for us to be in the same place.  Because the seminar is
live, you can still ask questions or make comments during the presentation.  You
can still see the presentation materials as I display them, and you can still
see me point to and annotate specific parts of the materials as I speak.  You
can even watch me during the presentation, though my current webcam provides
only low-qualify video.  For my part, I can still whip up code examples, and I
can still bring up web sites and walk you through them.  The experience can be
much as if I were there with you, except I'm not.

The foregoing assumes that everything goes well.  That's quite an assumption. 
Before I can embrace webinars, I need to have a better understanding of how they
really work for the kinds of things I want to use them for. That's where you
come in.  I've done small-scale testing of webinar technology, but now I want to
see how well it works with more people in more places using a wider variety of
platforms. To that end, I'm scheduling a two-part webinar for the next two
Thursdays: January 4 and January 11.  Part 1 will cover the implementation of
C++ virtual functions under single inheritance, while part 2 will extend the
treatment to multiple inheritance.  Both seminars will be free, and both will
tentatively take place at 10:00 AM Pacific Time (GMT-8 hours).  Each should run
no more than an hour.  Because one of the things I want to examine is
telephone-based audio versus VOIP-based audio, part 1 will use a conventional
phone bridge (i.e., you call a toll-free number to connect to the audio part of
the webinar), while part 2 will use VOIP (i.e, you'll need audio capabilities in
your computer to hear the presentation or to speak during it).

Some of the details of the webinars are still undecided, so at this point, I
suggest you simply set aside the days/times (4 and 11 January at 10AM Pacific
time) if you want to participate.

These are "shakedown webinars," so a primary goal is to learn what doesn't work
as well as it should.  To that end, after each webinar I'll explicitly ask for
suggestions on how I can make future webinars more effective.  There is a school
of thought that lecture-based webinar presentations are inherently ineffective
-- that they are vastly worse than face-to-face versions of the same
presentations.  I'm hoping that this is not the case, but I'm a guy who likes to
buttress his hopes with experience.  In addition to testing the technology
behind webinars, then, we'll also be testing the practicality of moving my
face-to-face presentations to the web in the first place.

The webinars will use Webex, a browser-based system that runs on many platforms;
the full list is available at
http://support.webex.com/support/system-requirements.html .  To use it, you'll
need to download and install some software, though this is normally handled
automatically.  If this sounds intrusive or scary, please withhold judgement
until you've had a chance to see how things work on your platform.

I'll send out a more detailed description of how to sign up for the seminars
when I know them myself  -- within the next few days.    I hope you'll want to
participate in these shakedown events, because the more people who attend, the
better I'll be able to evaluate how well Webex is up to the tasks I have in mind
for it.  Besides, the implementation of virtual functions is interesting stuff: 
vptrs, vtbls, how vptrs get set, dealing with invocation of pure virtual
functions, object offset adjustments under single and multiple inheritance,
thunks, vtbl deltas, compiler options to let you know what's going on, etc. --
all this will be covered in the talks.

If you're interested in helping me evaluate webinars and webinar technology,
please set aside about an hour on January 4 and 11 at 10AM Pacific time, and
watch this mailing list for more information on how to participate.

Thanks,

Scott

The first half of 2007 is looking to be a busy set of conference months for me. 
I'll be speaking at the new Software Development Best Practices India conference
in January (in Hyderabad, Chennai, and Bangalore);  at Software Development in
Santa Clara in March;  and at the Embedded Systems Conference in San Jose in
April.  As always, details on my upcoming public talks are available at
http://www.aristeia.com/seminars_frames.html .

It's not quite official yet (so it's not yet at the page mentioned above), but
I'll almost certainly be giving a talk at the inaugural Boost Conference in
Aspen, Colorado, in May.  You can read about that conference at
http://www.boost.org/more/BoostCon07.html .  In fact, there still time to submit
talk proposals -- check out
http://www.boost.org/more/BoostCon07_session_call.html .  FWIW, my talk there
will likely bear a close resemblance to the newest entry in my list of training
seminars:  "An Introduction to TR1 and Boost." Details on that are at
http://www.aristeia.com/TR1andBoost_frames.html .

Whether at Hyderabad, Chennai, Bangalore, Santa Clara, San Jose, or Aspen, I
look forward to seeing you at one or more of these events in the first half of
2007.

Scott

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