Reintroduction to Generic Programming for C++ Engineers
summary
Uses a TypeScript sort example to show how to add minimal interface constraints, then reproduces the same ideas in C++ by lifting repeated signatures into C++20 concepts named like iterator and range and implementing a tiny counter iterator that compiles but fails when used with std::ranges::advance because post‑increment is missing, demonstrates count working for linked lists and stream readers, argues archetypes are painful and TypeScript‑style checked generics are likely unimplementable, and gives eight concrete takeaways.
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chapters (10)
- 0:00Introduction to generics
- 11:07Analyzing TypeScript arrays
- 18:31Defining concepts in C++
- 23:55Intertwined semantics
- 33:00Testing with counter
- 36:41Over-constraining algorithms
- 43:25Checked generics and archetypes
- 52:49Product vs library code
- 56:46Generalizing stable code
- 1:01:41Leman's laws and conclusion
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