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Debunking C++ Myths

Debunking C++ Myths

By : Alexandru Bolboacă, Ferenc-Lajos Deák
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Debunking C++ Myths

Debunking C++ Myths

By: Alexandru Bolboacă, Ferenc-Lajos Deák

Overview of this book

Think you know C++? Think again. For decades, C++ has been clouded by myths and misunderstandings—from its early design decisions to misconceptions that still linger today. Claims like "C++ is too hard to learn" or "C++ is obsolete" are often rooted in some truth, but they are outdated and fail to capture the language’s ongoing evolution and modern capabilities. Written by industry veterans with over 40 years of combined experience, this book uncovers the myths, exploring their origins and relevance in the context of today’s C++ landscape. It equips you with a deeper understanding of advanced features and best practices to elevate your projects. Each chapter tackles a specific misconception, shedding light on C++'s modern features, such as smart pointers, lambdas, and concurrency. You’ll learn practical strategies to navigate common challenges like code portability and compiler compatibility, as well as how to incorporate modern best practices into your C++ codebase to optimize performance and future-proof your projects. By the end of this book, you’ll have a comprehensive understanding of C++'s evolution, equipping you to make informed decisions and harness its powerful features to enhance your skills, coding practices, and projects.
Table of Contents (15 chapters)
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The Main() Function is the Entry Point to Your Application

What happens before main stays in main

For programmers working with C++ on various operating systems, the entry point of an application is a concept that requires a deep understanding of the underlying architecture. In this chapter, we’ll analyze how an application starts, focusing on the initialization code that’s executed before we reach the user-defined main() function.

While exploring this process under Linux, we’ll analyze the Executable and Linkable Format (ELF), detailing how the execve() system call loads and executes a _start() function, which prepares the runtime environment before calling main(). We’ll also explore some compiler-specific extensions that we can use to manipulate this process. Then, we’ll shift our focus to Windows by offering a detailed examination of the Portable Executable (PE) file sections on Windows.

We’ll also use a tool called Ghidra to dissect...

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