Core and other guidelines. The good, the bad, the... questionable?
summary
Compares C++ Core Guidelines to how teams actually apply them, showing concrete harms and fixes: rule of five causes needless boilerplate and copy/move advice misapplied; don't use exceptions is often a large-codebase pragmatic choice (Google) not a universal ban; tooling recommended: clang-tidy, clang-format and static analysis with per-line disables; surprising real-world cost: 900–1,200 Singletons tying ~1.5M LOC into tests; advises short, linked guideline docs, automated checks, and documented exceptions so teams can follow rules sensibly.
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chapters (17)
- 0:00Guidelines introduction
- 4:26Rule of five pitfalls
- 7:41Rules vs developer responsibility
- 9:28Tooling for enforcement
- 10:09Google bans exceptions
- 14:29Single return statement
- 22:48Outdated guidelines in C++
- 23:09Const and reference members
- 26:42East vs west const
- 30:58Singleton misuse
- 36:06Project guidelines context
- 38:52Automated tooling exceptions
- 42:06Guidelines as freedom
- 43:37Code reviews discussion
- 44:42Short accessible guidelines
- 47:33Living guideline documents
- 48:34Challenging customer guidelines
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