Pete Becker

Pete Becker is a consultant and computer programmer, recognized as one of the world's foremost experts in the C++ programming language. He has been contributing to the C++ standardization process since its start and has authored several publications, including magazine articles and columns, and a book on the first C++ Library Technical Report (aka TR1).

Career[]

Becker worked for eight years at Borland International as a quality assurance engineer and manager, library implementor, and development manager. From 1997 to 2005 he was employed at Dinkumware, working on the source code and documentation of their C++ Standard Library and C Standard Library implementations.

C++ Standards Committee[]

Becker has been a member of the ISO/IEC (JTC1/SC22/WG21) C++ Standards committee since its inception in 1991. His work includes a proposal for standard support of dynamic libraries^[1] and arbitrary-precision arithmetic^[2] in C++. He has been the Project Editor from 2004 until 2011, when C++11 was released.

Dynamic Libraries[]

Becker's reasoning for the support of dynamic libraries are runtime flexibility, application updates, simplification of coding modules, and reduction of system memory requirements.^[3]

Syntax proposition was not yet declared. Although, it is clear to all C++ programmers that the syntax should involve the following properties.

// it should be applicable to individual names:

    shared int i;        // shared linkage

// it should be applicable to a block at file scope, affecting all names declared within the block that would otherwise have external linkage:

    shared {

         int j;          // shared linkage

         static int k;   // internal linkage

         }

// it should be applicable to a class, giving all member functions and all static data members shared linkage:

    shared class C {

         int c0;         // no linkage

         static int c1;  // shared linkage

         void f();       // shared linkage

         };

// it should be applicable to an explicit template specialization (but not to a mere template):

    template <class T> class D {

         int d0;         // no linkage

         static int d1;  // no linkage

         void f();       // no linkage

         };

    shared template <> D<int>;

                         // D<int>::d1 and D<int>::f have shared linkage^[4]

Publications[]

Becker has written several columns and articles, focusing primarily on C++. From 1995 to 2001, Becker was a regular columnist for C/C++ Users Journal. From 2005 to 2006 he wrote a monthly column entitled "The New C++ Not-So-Standard Library", focusing on various aspects of the C++ TR1 library extensions. After C/C++ Users Journal merged with Dr Dobb's Journal, Becker's column reappeared as "The New C++", now focusing on more general aspects of C and C++ programming.^[5]

In 2006 he published The C++ Standard Library Extensions: A Tutorial and Reference, a book covering the new functions and components proposed as extensions to the C++ Standard Library in C++ Technical Report 1.

References[]

External links[]

• Pete Becker's homepage

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