We concluded 2025 with an engaging Lightning Talks session and are happy that a total of 8 speakers answered our call to present something loosely related to C++ in 5 to 10 minutes. Following the idea that everyone has something valuable to share. Sometimes, it’s these small sparks of inspiration, ideas we might not even realize could resonate, that have the power to ignite something big. So a big thank you to all of our speakers:
Elivs Dukaj • How strong types can make live easier
Elvis presented an idea to make C++ code more robust and easier to read: Strong types, (aka Semantic types)! Using an example, he showed us how some code could be extended and modified to include semantic types.
Thomas Mertes • Who is dominating?
Thomas gave us a teaser to talk he prepared, asking some provocative questions about programming paradigms.
René Paris • The pragmatic prescription (in 7 days to a lucky team)
René showed us with some lessons on managing the elusive creature that is the software developer. There is more to it than just setting some deadlines and expecting results. Attention, could get a little bit touchy 🤭.
Thomas Mejstrik • How many equal characters can be put in a row in a valid C++ programm?
How many ways are there to have one character repeated in code, but still produce valid C++ code? Thomas showed us that there are many more ways than just adding “aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa” into a comment. That’s cheating 😉!
Fridtjof Sterna • Why Juniors beat LLMs
As AI is all the rage these days, Fridtjof talked about the common comparison of junior developers with AI coding agents. He goes on to explain how his junior brings more excitement and novelty into work than an AI does.
Robert Schimkowitsch • Design of a Dialog System
Robert presented a design idea for a GUI system. A Dialog with some inputs and buttons is taken as an example. The separation of GUI and Logic is explained by exploring different aspects that this system would need to have.
Umair Ahmed • C++ AI Analyser
Umair talked about his university project of integrating an AI agent into VSCode. The agent can help with different C++ development related tasks. For example, debugging, general explanations of code, and more.
Helmut Hlavacs • C++ Type List and the Vienna Type List Library
Helmut presented us his implementation of a type list library appropriately named “Vienna Type List Library”. It provides many common algorithms that can be applied at compile time to create complex type constructs. These range from counting the number of types in a type list to filtering from a list.
https://github.com/hlavacs/ViennaTypeListLibrary
📹 And if you missed the talks (or just want to watch them again), here’s a link to the recording:
Until Next Time
We look forward to seeing both familiar faces and new ones at our upcoming meetups. New dates will be announced soon on https://cppusergroupvienna.org.
Disclaimers
A big thank you to the TU alumni club for providing us with such a great venue! And hey! Why not join too?