CppCon 2016

When innovation-hungry programmers discovered by accident that C++
allows us to calculate and transform programs at compile time, an
humongous hype was triggered: gigantic research projects were launched
to develop self-optimizing software. Unfortunately, such software also
had gigantic compile times of up to several days on parallel
machines. And the syntax of template meta-programming can drive the
toughest geeks into insanity. Despite this disillusion, the compiler
support improved over the years and constexpr brought us a much
simpler syntax.

In this light we like to ask the questions: What can,
should, and must we compute at compile time? Which new opportunities
offer constexpr and their extension in C++14? What have to be done
in the classical manner still? We will discover the different techniques of
meta-programming with examples of simple examples, type information,
expression templates and meta-tuning. Without becoming unbearably
theoretical, we will show the equivalence of constexpr in C++11 and
C++14 and their Turing completeness.