CppCon 2019

When we code, we often assume that the computer has an infinite amount of
memory. This is, of course, /very/ false. It is false for embedded
programming, where memory is often limited to a few megabytes or even a few
kilobytes, but it is also false for the most powerful workstations and
servers. Using memory wisely makes your application possible on small
systems as well as prevents, or at least reduces, scaling problems for
larger applications. While some programming languages are designed to hide
implementation details from the programmer, C++ allows the programmer to
specify, with a good level of control, how memory is allocated, structured,
and used. In this talk, we will explore what can be done at run-time with
negligible cost, what can be done at compile-time with meta-programming,
and how we can thwart default compiler behavior to achieve memory-efficient
type-safe data representations. We will also extend the discussion to the
higher-level reorganization of data structures in order to make a better
use of memory.