README.md

Some notes on C++

Zhijin Li

The list may be getting bigger in the future: I'll probably write down whatever I think is interesting here :-)

• I use a lot of stuff from boost and Eigen, so if you are interested in testing mu code, you'll probably want to have the lastest version of these two libraries.
• Almost all codes require at least C++11 (sometimes C++14). The last time I checked, we are in 2016 :p

Current stuff that I've got:

1. Expression templates: sorted of C++'s implementation of the Lazy-Evaluation for numerical computations, in particular linear algebra. Basically, expression templates construct an evaluation graph of the computation flow at compile-time. This avoids immediate generation of temporary computation results, which in some (most) cases, are unnecessary. I wrote a minimal example expression template project, demonstrating how it could be done by hand for simple point-wise computation cases, and what the performance boost is compared to naive computations.

   Expression templates are rather complicated, especially when you have more advanced computations involved. And they also present some caveats / pitfalls (such as the use of C++11 auto together with expression templates). The Eigen library is a good place to go if you want to learn more about them. I recommand that you take a look the amazing documentations of Eigen link, if you are interested in doing more cool stuff with expression templates!