[Baypiggies] ACCU tonight "Programmers and Truthiness" Dan Saks

[Walter Vannini]

Please note that this is an extra ACCU talk, and is NOT on a second Wednesday.

When:      Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Topic:     Programmers and Truthiness
Speaker:   Dan Saks
Time:      6:30pm doors open
         7:00pm meeting begins
Where:     Symantec
         VCAFE building
         350 Ellis Street (near E. Middlefield Road)
         Mountain View, CA 94043
Map:       <http://tinyurl.com/334rv5>
Directions: VCAFE is accessible from the semicircular courtyard between Symantec buildings <http://tinyurl.com/2dccgc>
Cost:      Free
More Info: <http://www.accu-usa.org>

Most programmers fancy themselves to be rational and objective, more so than the general population. Recent research suggests this self image might have a basis in fact. Nonetheless, C and C++ programmers still cling to programming styles and practices which are unsupported by evidence and sometimes even contradicted by it.

Comedian Stephen Colbert has popularized the word "truthiness" to describe the human trait of knowing something "from the gut" without regard to actual facts. This talk takes a lighthearted look at C and C++ programmers' truthiness in the hope of inspiring more truthfulness.

This is an updated version of the talk Dan gave as the closing talk of the 2007 ACCU Conference in Oxford.

Dan Saks is the president of Saks & Associates, which offers training and consulting in C and C++ and their use in developing embedded systems. Dan writes the Programming Pointers column for Embedded Systems Design magazine and Embedded.com online. He has written columns for several other publications including The C/C++ Users Journal, The C++ Report, and Software Development. With Thomas Plum, he wrote C++ Programming Guidelines, which won a 1992 Computer Language Magazine Productivity Award.

Dan has taught C and C++ to thousands of programmers around the world. He has presented at conferences such as Software Development, Embedded Systems, and C++ World. He has served on the advisory boards of the Embedded Systems and Software Development conferences.

Dan served as secretary of the ANSI and ISO C++ Standards committees and as a member of the ANSI C Standards committee. More recently, he contributed to the CERT Secure C Coding Standard and the CERT Secure C++ Coding Standard.

Meetings are open to the public and are free of charge.

---- Upcoming ACCU talks -----

Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Olve Maudal
"Deep C"

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The ACCU meets monthly. Meetings are always open to the public and are free of charge. To suggest topics and speakers please email Walter Vannini via walterv at gbbservices.com