API Design for C++

API Design for C++, Second Edition provides a comprehensive discussion of Application Programming Interface (API) development, from initial design through implementation, testing, documentation, release, versioning, maintenance, and deprecation. It is the only book that teaches the strategies of C++ API development, including interface design, versioning, scripting, and plug-in extensibility. Drawing from the author’s experience on large scale, collaborative software projects, the text offers practical techniques of API design that produce robust code for the long-term. It presents patterns and practices that provide real value to individual developers as well as organizations. The Second Edition includes all new material fully updated for the latest versions of C++, including a new chapter on concurrency and multithreading, as well as a new chapter discussing how Objective C++ and C++ code can co-exist and how a C++ API can be accessed from Swift programs. In addition, it explores often overlooked issues, both technical and non-technical, contributing to successful design decisions that produce high quality, robust, and long-lived APIs. It focuses on various API styles and patterns that will allow you to produce elegant and durable libraries. A discussion on testing strategies concentrates on automated API testing techniques rather than attempting to include end-user application testing techniques such as GUI testing, system testing, or manual testing.

• Teaches the strategies of C++ API development, including design, versioning, documentation, testing, scripting, and extensibility
• Includes extensive code examples that illustrate each concept, with fully functional examples and working source code for experimentation available online
• Covers various API styles and patterns, with a focus on practical and efficient designs for large-scale, long-term projects
• Includes updated URLs and ensures all code examples continue to work with modern compilers and supporting tools

Table of Contents

1 – Introduction

2 – Qualities

3 – Patterns

4 – Design

5 – Styles

6 – C++ usage

7 – C ++ revisions

8 – Performance

9 – Concurrency

10 – Versioning

11 – Documentation

12 – Testing

13 – Objective and Swift

14 – Scripting

15 – Extensibility

About the Author

Martin Reddy holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science and has over 30 years of experience in the software industry. He is a Fellow of the IEEE, a Fellow of the AAIA, and a Distinguished Member of the ACM. He has published 10 patents, over 40 professional articles, and 2 books. Martin was co-founder and CTO of the AI startup, PullString, where he oversaw the development of the company’s technology until it was acquired by Apple in 2019. While at Apple, Martin was a software architect responsible for the architecture and APIs of major components of the Siri virtual assistant. Before that, Dr. Reddy worked for 6 years at Pixar Animation Studios where he was a lead engineer for the studio’s in-house animation system. He worked on several Academy Award Winning and Nominated films, such as “Finding Nemo”, “The Incredibles”, “Cars”, “Ratatouille”, and “Wall-E”. He was also the hair model for Mr Incredible. Martin began his career at SRI International where he worked on a distributed 3D terrain visualization system and co-authored the geospatial functionality in the VRML and X3D ISO standards. Martin was awarded Alumnus of the Year by his alma mater, Strathclyde University.