The next iteration of the C++ standard passed the ISO technical committee review earlier this year and is scheduled to be approved this fall. This version of the specification is now referred to as C++11 (a reference to the year it will be approved). Jim Humelsine recently sent me the following link that provides a neat table of the new features of C++11, along with the status of their implementation in the gcc compiler. This resource was put together by George Flanagin and provides a succinct overview of the new features of C++11 as well as a great reference for those interested in trying some of these out in their own code. As I describe in my book, many of these new features allow for better C++ API designs.

• http://www.georgeflanagin.com/c++11/c++11.features/

The Standard Template Library (STL) provides a collection of containers, iterators, algorithms, and functors for C++. This is perhaps the most famous and widely-used C++ API. It provides template-based containers such as std::string, std::vector, std::map, and std::set, which you can specialize with your own types (std::string is of course already specialized for characters). The STL is therefore a good place to look for an example of compile-time polymorphism in C++. The authoritative documentation is the STL programmer’s guide from SGI:

• http://www.sgi.com/tech/stl/

The Boost libraries are a collection of open-source libraries that extend the functionality of C++. Many of the Boost founders are active in the C++ standards committee and as a result several of the Boost libraries have been included in the new C++ ISO standard (C++0x), including smart pointers, function object binders, type traits, and tuples. You’d have to go a long way before you find better examples of modern C++ API design.

• http://www.boost.org/

You can also find a good overview of the Boost libraries on Wikipedia.

Intel provides the Threading Building Blocks (TBB) as an open-source library to make it easier to write multithreaded C++ code. This library offers some good examples of C++ API design, including the use of namespaces, templates, containers, iterators, and parallel programming patterns. The TBB library works for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.

• http://www.threadingbuildingblocks.org/documentation.php

Andrei Alexandrescu published an excellent book called “Modern C++ Design.” In this book, he introduced the notion of policy-based templates as a way to provide highly-configurable solutions to various design patterns. He made the source code for these templates available via his Loki library, available at:

• http://sourceforge.net/projects/loki-lib/