It seems the usage of the auto keyword of C++11 occasionally is still the subject of discussions.

As being someone who likes using “almost always auto” (AAA), I’m really glad I do not have people who tell me when I’m allowed to use auto and when not.

After having recently seen yet another discussion about the subject, I later happened to stumble upon an older CppCon 2014 talk by Herb Sutter, where Herb also talked about the usage of the auto keyword.

The title of the talk was: “Back to the Basics! Essentials of Modern C++ Style”.

I think Herb pretty much nailed it in this talk.

I also do like his “left-to-right auto style” a lot. We’ve applied it in the source code of our UML Editor!

Compare this original snippet of C++ statements from our ScreenCanvas module:

DCfromWindow dc{ itsWindow };
GdiObjectOwner<HBITMAP> bm{ ::CreateCompatibleBitmap(dc, size.cx, size.cy) };
DcOwner mdc{ ::CreateCompatibleDC(dc) };
GdiObjectSelector<HBITMAP> bms{ mdc };
bms.Select(bm.get());

which I changed to

auto dc = DCfromWindow{ itsWindow };
auto bm = GdiObjectOwner<HBITMAP>{ ::CreateCompatibleBitmap(dc, size.cx, size.cy) };
auto mdc = DcOwner{ ::CreateCompatibleDC(dc) };
auto bms = GdiObjectSelector<HBITMAP>{ mdc };
bms.Select(bm.get());

Isn’t that nice? In any case: I like it a lot!

I definitely recommend watching that talk. Even though it is from 2014, I think it still applies today. Congrats to Herb for that talk!