Metaprogramming in the Real World

Don Clugston
May 3rd @ 9:00 AM

Duration: 50 minutes
Talk type: Presentation
Level: Intermediate, Advanced
Slides
Video: [HD] [SD]

Tweet

Abstract: 

Sociomantic Labs is a global leader in real-time bidding for online display advertising. Our codebase is not only written entirely in D, but also makes extensive use of generic programming, even in application-level code. Compile-time metaprogramming techniques have a reputation of being akin to sorcery, incomprehensible to all but an elite group of top-notch library developers. Yet we have found that even developers with no prior knowledge of D have been able to master the compile-time aspects of the language in a remarkably short period of time.

This presentation will review the history of this part of the language, to explain exactly how and why generic programming D has become so accessible in practice. Drawing from Sociomantic's experience with D, I'll discuss the areas where reality differs from expectations. Accessible metaprogramming has huge implications for the future commercial growth of D, and our real-world experience will help the D community to further exploit this strength.

Benefits:

Speaker Bio: Don Clugston is a senior developer at Sociomantic Labs GmbH. Before becoming a full-time D programmer, he worked for 15 years in the solar photovoltaics industry, both in research and manufacturing. He also wrote the FastDelegate library which is used by many C++ programmers. He has been a prolific contributor to the D community since 2005.