I always enjoy teaching together with Scott Meyers and Andrei Alexandrescu, not only because it means I get to work with good friends, but also because I get to listen to them speak. Scott and Andrei always have interesting and useful things to say and say them well. We occasionally speak at the same big conferences, but at those we’re often scheduled at the same time and so we don’t get to hear each other’s sessions (and attendees likewise have to choose one competing session or the other for that time slot), and presenting in large rooms to hundreds of people makes it hard to get much quality face time with the individual audience members.

So I’m really looking forward to spending three days together with Scott and Andrei and a limited number of attendees at a new event called C++ and Beyond:

What do C++ programmers think about these days? Perhaps the new features from C++0x that are becoming commonly available and that introduce fundamental changes in how C++ software is designed. Perhaps the increasing importance of developing effective concurrent systems. Perhaps the continuing pressure to create high-performance software. Possibly the impact of new systems programming languages such as D. Most likely, all of the above, and more. C++ legends Scott Meyers, Herb Sutter, and Andrei Alexandrescu think about these things, too — all the time. Scott and Herb are neck-deep in C++0x, while Andrei is literally writing the book on D (The D Programming Language). Herb and Andrei put the pedal to the metal on applied concurrency and parallelism; Herb is writing the book on that topic (Effective Concurrency). All three focus on the development of high-performance systems, a topic Scott’s writing a book about (Fastware!). This summer, Scott, Herb, and Andrei will host an intensive three-day technical event focusing on “C++ and Beyond” — an examination of issues related to C++ and its application in high-performance (typically highly concurrent) systems, as well as related technologies of likely interest to C++ programmers.

We know it’ll be in the Seattle area. We know it’ll be this summer. What we don’t know is which of the two candidate dates (in June or August) works best for you, so we thought we’d let you decide: If you’re potentially interested in attending, please vote for your preferred date. At that page you can also let us know what kinds of topics you’d like to see covered.

Once we finalize the details we’ll post them and open registration. You can subscribe to follow announcements via this feed.

We hope to see you in the beautiful Pacific Northwest this summer.