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Keynote: C++ Painkillers for C++ Developers - The Evolution of C++ Tooling - Anastasia Kazakova
Excerpt
In the Annual C++ Developer Survey Lite conducted by the C++ Foundation, the community identified a number of major pain points when working with C++. The top five pain points for C++ developers have nothing to do with the language itself, but instead focus on: 1) Managing dependencies. 2) Setting up CI/CD pipelines. 3) Build times. 4) Dealing with CMake. 5) Setting up toolchains and IDEs. With the top C++ pain points being all about the tools, let’s discuss if the language has become more toolable throughout its evolution, what the state of its toolability is today, and how it’s going to change tomorrow.
Related Pain Points
No standard package management system
7C++ lacks a standard dependency manager like Rust's Cargo or Python's pip. Solutions like Conan and vcpkg are difficult to use; CPM is more promising but not standard.
Template compilation is slow
7Templates in C++ are compiled slowly, adding significant overhead to build times, especially problematic when templates must be defined in headers.
Front-end developers struggling with CI/CD pipelines
6Front-end developers list CI configuration (26%) and code writing (28%) as primary challenges. CI/CD complexity isn't traditionally in their wheelhouse but increasingly required.
Toolchain and IDE setup
6Configuring development toolchains and integrated development environments presents a significant barrier for C++ developers.