A Short Life span - For A Regular Mess
summary
Argues that std::span arrives from the GSL to replace pointer+length pairs but ends up a non-owning borrow type with surprising semantics: copy is shallow copy, element comparison was removed, so span is semi‑regular not regular. Notes practical tool support: clang 7+ implements span, GCC STL lags, Chromium and Christian Brindle implementations exist, and Visual Studio’s C++ Core Guidelines checkers warn about pointer arithmetic. Concludes span’s design reduces bugs in some cases but creates new surprises for API design.
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chapters (12)
- 0:00Introduction and motivation
- 3:19Fundamentals of programming
- 6:58The role of mathematics in code
- 12:23Principles of STL and concepts
- 16:54Concepts and naming conventions
- 20:16Ordering and equality
- 22:15Regular and semi-regular types
- 25:48String view analysis
- 31:31Deep dive into span
- 39:32Span design challenges
- 48:23Practical implementation issues
- 51:42Conclusion and call to action
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