CppCon, The C++ Conference

Hi everyone! ☺️ I’m very happy to share that I’ll be giving “The Biggest Misconception in Computer Science” at CppCon 2026! 🎉🚀 CppCon will take place September 12–18 in Aurora, Colorado, and it is easily one of my favorite conferences in the world right after Core C++, of course 😜 (which, by the way, is coming very soon! register here: https://corecpp.org/) I’m genuinely honored to give this talk at CppCon. The last time I gave it, someone came up to me afterward and asked: “Are you a lecturer at a university?” 😂 I decided to take that as a compliment. So if you’ve ever learned about algorithms, complexity, and Big-O and then wondered why the real machine sometimes seems to completely ignore what you learned... Come join me. 😉 We’re going to talk about the wonderful gap between theory and practice and why understanding the hardware underneath your algorithm can completely change what “fast” actually means. 🧠⚙️🔥 📅 Thursday, September 17 ⏰ 15:15–16:15 MDT And apparently the competition in my time slot is brutal... 😅 So I need your help: register for my talk and make me feel popular! 😜👇 https://lnkd.in/dYnTsemm See you at CppCon! ❤️ #CppCon #CppCon2026 #cplusplus #softwareengineering #performance

CppCon, The C++ Conference 2026, Sept 12th-18th, 2026, Aurora, Co, USA Session Preview: “Refactoring Techniques and Strategies (a Tale in Three Acts)” by Dave Steffen sched.co/2RT69 Conference registration: cppcon.org/registration Lodging reservations: cppcon.org/lodging Academy Workshops: https://lnkd.in/g2tVaxDR See sched.co/2RT69 for the abstract and the speaker bio [information/schedule subject to updates and changes]

CppCon, The C++ Conference 2026, Sept 12th-18th, 2026, Aurora, Co, USA Session Preview: “The Ghost in the Heap: Defeating a Memory Thief” by Nicolas Arroyo sched.co/2RT66 Conference registration: cppcon.org/registration Lodging reservations: cppcon.org/lodging Academy Workshops: https://lnkd.in/g2tVaxDR See sched.co/2RT66 for the abstract and the speaker bio [information/schedule subject to updates and changes]

CppCon, The C++ Conference 2026, Sept 12th-18th, 2026, Aurora, Co, USA Session Preview: “Interesting Upcoming Low-Latency, Networking, Concurrency, and Parallelism Features from Kona 2025, Croydon 2026, and Brno 2026” by Paul McKenney, Maged Michael and Michael Wong sched.co/2RT65 Conference registration: cppcon.org/registration Lodging reservations: cppcon.org/lodging Academy Workshops: https://lnkd.in/g2tVaxDR See sched.co/2RT65 for the abstract and the speaker bio [information/schedule subject to updates and changes]

I recently came across this video on my YouTube feed from Hitesh Choudhary from Chai Aur Code calling out on C++'s limited scope in Indian tech circles. It's a breath of fresh air, too bad I found it two years later. It seems that my YouTube algorithm finally caught up with my CppCon, The C++ Conference binge watching. In this video, he correctly identified the parorchial narrative of C++ as a vehicle for placement pipeline. However Hitesh's solution is completely disconnected from the industry. I'm actively using C++23 in my projects, and here's where I see the major flaws in the video. C++'s revelence in India rose with the popularity in competitive programming culture in India around 2021. This was the time when Raj Vikramaditya, and Utkarsh Gupta had their peak popularity. C++ for years was dominant due to the ability to write C-like code. This led to faster writing and execution speeds against Java. This resulted in influencers using competitive programming as a sure path to a job. The problem I see is that almost all Hindi YouTubers in this space, use pre-98 C++ style. I've even seen a big name creator in March 2026 used raw pointers instead of std::vector to dynamically size arrays! Not only it misses cache hits, it also misses the points of updates in the C++ standards made by Bjarne Stroustrup and the C++ committee. Those new standards are neither add-ons, nor afterthoughts. Those features are added to shift your focus from low level details to high level problems, while providing optimal perfomance-per-watt (as Herb Sutter stated). I understand that web development is dominant in India. Often ending up becoming the only visible form of software development. However, shoehorning C++ into the web development undermines the potential of C++. From my interview experience, web development teams look for stack alignment, while C++ teams look for domain alignment. This is the inverse of web dev world. Despite knowing C++, my game development experience fell short against the requirements for HFT interviews. Once I started reasoning at the archtiectural level, my HFT interview performance drastically improved. The solution isn't a web development project in C++. The real solution here is to guide how to build small, but complex systems where C++'s abstractions make sense. This could include making a real-time markdown parser with desktop GUI, or a simple database like a redis or SQLite clone. I know this is hard since most Tier-3 Indian universities are not rigourous with software development fundamentals, but it needs to be done. Expect more C++ idealism content for a while, as I see a lot of room for major correction to get students upto to speed with modern standards like C++20, ideally C++23. #SoftwareEngineering #Cplusplus #WebDevelopment #TechCareers #IndianTech #Programming #CareerAdvice

In the weeks leading up to my CppCon, The C++ Conference talk, I’ll be publishing a series of blog posts about building a custom C++ game engine. The idea came from a simple problem: one hour is not enough to cover everything I want to talk about during my CppCon session. For the talk, I’m porting Soup Raiders from Unity to my custom engine, with a concrete target: run it on Nintendo Switch at 60 Hz, with loading times under 3 seconds. The first article asks the obvious question: why build a custom engine at all? I go through the reasons that make it interesting for this project, and some of the advantages you get when you control the whole stack. The introduction and first article are in the comments 👇

CppCon, The C++ Conference 2026, Sept 12th-18th, 2026, Aurora, Co, USA Session Preview: “In Pursuit of a 6,000 FPS Game Boy Emulator” by Tom Tesch sched.co/2RT6C Conference registration: cppcon.org/registration Lodging reservations: cppcon.org/lodging Academy Workshops: https://lnkd.in/g2tVaxDR See sched.co/2RT6C for the abstract and the speaker bio [information/schedule subject to updates and changes]

CppCon, The C++ Conference 2026, Sept 12th-18th, 2026, Aurora, Co, USA Session Preview: “Embedded-Friendly C++: Modern Features That Make a Difference” by Andreas Fertig sched.co/2RT6B Conference registration: cppcon.org/registration Lodging reservations: cppcon.org/lodging Academy Workshops: https://lnkd.in/g2tVaxDR See sched.co/2RT6B for the abstract and the speaker bio [information/schedule subject to updates and changes]

CppCon, The C++ Conference 2026, Sept 12th-18th, 2026, Aurora, Co, USA Session Preview: “Ranges Without Compromise: Designing for Simplicity, Performance, and Composability” by Oleksandr Bacherikov sched.co/2RT5u Conference registration: cppcon.org/registration Lodging reservations: cppcon.org/lodging Academy Workshops: https://lnkd.in/g2tVaxDR See sched.co/2RT5u for the abstract and the speaker bio [information/schedule subject to updates and changes]