Code Examples

This book contains multiple C++ code examples and snippets. Their main purpose is to demonstrate ideas expressed in the book as well as guide developers into the right direction. There are no huge code listings (nobody reads them anyway) and no detailed explanations for every line of code. I expect the readers to understand the demonstrated idea and take it to the next level themselves.

In order to demonstrate the idea I rarely use production level code, at least not up front. I will start with something simple and non-generic and gradually increase the complexity and/or genericity.

I'm also a huge fan of Non-Virtual Interface (NVI) Idiom and often my examples will look like this:

class SomeInterface
{
public:
    void someFunction()
    {
        someFunctionImpl();
    }

protected:
    virtual void someFunctionImpl() = 0;
};

class Derived : public SomeInterface
{
protected:
    virtual void someFunctionImpl() override {...}
};

The non virtual interface function is supposed to check pre- and post-conditions of the polymorphic invocation if such exist as well as execute some common code if such is required. I tend to write the code similar to above even when there are no pre- and post-conditions to check and no common code to execute. Please don't be surprised when seeing such constructs throughout the book.