C++ is often labeled as “unsafe” and “complex,” but I find these critiques unjustified. My experience working on major projects like Chromium, Node, and gRPC — each a non-trivial codebase deployed on millions of devices, both virtual and physical, and subject to rigorous scrutiny—has shown me the true power and reliability of C++. Let’s not forget the remarkable engineering feats made possible by C++, such as Unreal Engine. Even Linux and Git, both written in C (arguably even less “safe” than C++), stand as testaments to the robust potential of these languages.
There is a trick to writing C++ code in a scalable way. I would call it “write C++ the Google way”. Google has been using C++ for decades and has accumulated a wealth of expertise in writing C++ code that is safe, performant, and maintainable. And that expertise is readily available on GitHub.
In this article, I want to introduce you to some open-source projects that make writing C++ code enjoyable. These projects are designed to work seamlessly together, yet you can pick and choose the ones that best fit your needs.
Google C++ Style Guide: Lingua Franca
The Google C++ Style Guide explains how to make C++ code beautiful. This
comprehensive set of conventions ensures consistency across projects, making it easier for developers to dive into new codebases with confidence.
The guide goes beyond mere stylistic choices like indentation width (2 spaces) or file naming conventions (all lowercase, with underscores (_) or dashes (-)). It delves deep into language features and provides the rationale behind each decision, offering a clear path to writing high-quality, maintainable C++ code.
Perhaps the most controversial convention in the guide is the “ban” on exceptions. “We do not use C++ exceptions” is a rule that can be hard to accept for developers coming from other languages. Yet, exceptions are not as essential as they might seem. Languages like Go thrive without them, and C++ projects like Chromium and gRPC demonstrate that robust and efficient code can be written without exceptions.
I frequently recommend this guide to developers both inside and outside Google as the simplest way to elevate the quality of their C++ code. By adhering to these well-established conventions, anyone can write C++ “the Google way” and enjoy the benefits of safer, more maintainable, and performant code.
Bazel: If You Build It, They Will Come
Bazel is a build system inspired by Google’s internal build system. Thousands of engineers at Google use Blaze daily to build countless projects, written not only in C++ but also in Java, Python, Go, other languages.
Bazel highlights:
- Starlark Language: Bazel build files are written in Starlark, a language that is both extensible and easy to read. This simplicity makes it approachable for new users and powerful enough for complex build configurations.
- Efficient Caching: One of Bazel’s standout features is its efficient caching mechanism, which relies on checksums rather than timestamps. This results in significantly faster and more reliable builds, a feature I rely on daily for large C++ projects like gRPC.
- Dependency Tracking: Bazel excels in dependency tracking, minimizing the size of build artifacts and speeding up the build process. This feature ensures that only the necessary components are rebuilt, saving valuable time and resources.
- Powerful Query Language: Bazel includes a robust query language that allows developers to analyze the build graph, providing deep insights into the build process and helping to optimize it further.
Bazel makes it trivial to build Protobuf libraries, supports multiple
languages and most libraries I mention below are trivial to add to a Bazel project, just look at Uchen.ML module file:
'''
Uchen core - ML framework
'''
module(name = "uchen-core", version = "0.1", compatibility_level = 1)
bazel_dep(name = "abseil-cpp", version = "20240116.2")
bazel_dep(name = "googletest", version = "1.14.0")
git_override(
module_name = "googletest",
remote = "https://github.com/google/googletest.git",
commit = "1d17ea141d2c11b8917d2c7d029f1c4e2b9769b2",
)
bazel_dep(name = "google_benchmark", version = "1.8.3")
git_override(
module_name = "google_benchmark",
remote = "https://github.com/google/benchmark.git",
commit = "447752540c71f34d5d71046e08192db181e9b02b",
)
# Dev dependencies
bazel_dep(name = "hedron_compile_commands", dev_dependency = True)
git_override(
module_name = "hedron_compile_commands",
remote =
"https://github.com/hedronvision/bazel-compile-commands-extractor.git",
commit = "a14ad3a64e7bf398ab48105aaa0348e032ac87f8",
)
Abseil: Utilities
Abseil provides a wide array of utilities across various categories. Some of these utilities, such as absl::string_view and absl::optional, have already been adopted into the standard C++ library, with Abseil seamlessly using the standard versions when available. Other utilities, like my favorite absl::Cleanup, seem to be on track to being standartize late (see std::scope_exit). Many utilities in Abseil remain beyond the current scope of the standard library, offering unique functionalities that enhance C++ development.
I heavily rely on the following parts of Abseil for my projects:
Many classes in UchenML are augmented with AbslStringify which allows for very easy tracing and debugging.
I would also like to point out the C++ Tips section that I would consider an essential reading for any C++ developer, on par with the Google C++ Style Guide.
Google Test: Industry Standard
My impression is that Google Test is the most popular C++ testing framework and I often see it used in projects outside Google. Not really much to add.
I would definitely recommend to also take a look at GMock. GMock provides some matchers that can also be used for regular assertions. E.g., this is how contents of the collection can be checked ignoring the order:
EXPECT_THAT(collection, ::testing::UnorderedElementsAre(1, 2, 3));
Benchmarking: Google Benchmark
Writing benchmarks can be a fun and enlightening process, though it’s easy to get caught up in the quest for better numbers. Despite this, benchmarks are crucial for performance-conscious development. Modern CPUs and compilers are highly complex, making performance reasoning anything but straightforward.
Linters
Linters keep the code base consistent and help to catch a lot of issues and even bugs way before the compiler is ran. Clang-Tidy is the one I am relying on. IWYU is really helpful in keeping the includes clean, reducing number of dependencies and reducing the build times.
Sanitizers
Sanitizers detect and troubleshoot issues that are difficult to debug, such as memory leaks, concurrency issues, and undefined behavior. ASAN is the one I am using the most. This is the contents of the .bazelrc set adds a special Bazel config so ASAN can be ran at any time on any target by adding --config=asan to the build command:
build:asan --strip=never
build:asan --copt=-fsanitize=address
build:asan --copt=-O0
build:asan --copt=-fno-omit-frame-pointer
build:asan --copt=-DGPR_NO_DIRECT_SYSCALLS
build:asan --copt=-DADDRESS_SANITIZER # used by absl
build:asan --linkopt=-fsanitize=address
build:asan --action_env=ASAN_OPTIONS=detect_leaks=1:color=always
Other sanitizers worth mentioning are:
Serialization: Protobuf
This is a language-agnostic serialization library that is much faster than JSON and provides way more compact representation. There are several implementations with different features and trade offs. μpb is a very lightweight C++ implemantion that uses arena allocations.
Protobufs have a large number of features that are very useful in practice:
- Reflection API
- JSON serialization
- Text serialization (makes it very tempting to use protobufs as a configuration format)
RPC: gRPC
Disclamer: I am working on gRPC full-time so I am biased.
gRPC is another open-source effort that was informed and inspired by Google internal architecture. It is a proven solution (most Google Cloud APIs are implemented in gRPC) and is used by projects like TensorFlow, Firebase and many others (e.g. Bazel uses it for distributed build support).
This is what gRPC offers that is not readily available in REST:
- Strongly typed API with codegen support for most popular languages
- Streaming support, including bi-directional streaming
- Client and server side load balancing
- Authentication and authorization support
- A lot of configuration options for things like timeouts, retries, etc.
- Built-in support for tracing and monitoring
Portable SIMD: Highway
One can not utilize the full power of modern CPUs without using SIMD
instructions. Highway library provides a portable way to use SIMD instructions across different platforms, making leveraging SIMD much more practical.
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