CppCon 2015

Dropbox has been using C++ for cross-platform development on mobile platforms since 2012. In 2014 we open-sourced Djinni, our code generator that bridges C++ to other languages. In this talk we'll dive deep into some implementation techniques we use to bridge languages, easily, flexibly, and efficiently. We'll use the recent addition of Python-to-C++ bridging as an example of the challenges and decisions which come up when building a bridge between two very different languages, as well as talking about some interesting challenges we faced in Java and Objective-C.  Topics include marshaling data-types, cross-language object ownership and identity, template-generated cached proxy objects, and translation of exceptions. What you learn should arm you to bridge languages for your own needs, or use/extend Djinni for your own programs. No prior knowledge of Djinni or mobile development required, but intermediate C++ will be assumed, and a bit of Python will be useful.