ACCU (organisation)

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ACCU, previously known as the Association of C and C++ Users, is a non-profit user group of people interested in software development, dedicated to raising the standard of computer programming. The ACCU publishes two journals and organizes an annual conference. [1]

Software development is the process of conceiving, specifying, designing, programming, documenting, testing, and bug fixing involved in creating and maintaining applications, frameworks, or other software components. Software development is a process of writing and maintaining the source code, but in a broader sense, it includes all that is involved between the conception of the desired software through to the final manifestation of the software, sometimes in a planned and structured process. Therefore, software development may include research, new development, prototyping, modification, reuse, re-engineering, maintenance, or any other activities that result in software products.

Computer programming Process that leads from an original formulation of a computing problem to executable computer programs

Computer programming is the process of designing and building an executable computer program for accomplishing a specific computing task. Programming involves tasks such as: analysis, generating algorithms, profiling algorithms' accuracy and resource consumption, and the implementation of algorithms in a chosen programming language. The source code of a program is written in one or more languages that are intelligible to programmers, rather than machine code, which is directly executed by the central processing unit. The purpose of programming is to find a sequence of instructions that will automate the performance of a task on a computer, often for solving a given problem. The process of programming thus often requires expertise in several different subjects, including knowledge of the application domain, specialized algorithms, and formal logic.

Contents

History

ACCU was formed in 1987 by Martin Houston. The original name of the organisation was C Users' Group (UK) and this remained the formal name of the organisation until 2011, although it adopted the public name Association of C and C++ Users for the period 1993[ citation needed ]–2003, and adopted the shorter form ACCU from 2003 onward. [2] As the formal name suggests, the organisation was originally created for people in the United Kingdom. However, the membership is worldwide, predominantly European and North American, but also with members from central and southern America, Australasia, Africa and Asia. Originally, the voluntary association was mainly for C programmers, but it has expanded over time to include all programming languages, especially C++, C#, Java, Perl and Python.

United Kingdom Country in Europe

The United Kingdom (UK), officially the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and sometimes referred to as Britain, is a sovereign country located off the north-western coast of the European mainland. The United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland, and many smaller islands. Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state, the Republic of Ireland. Apart from this land border, the United Kingdom is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, with the North Sea to the east, the English Channel to the south and the Celtic Sea to the south-west, giving it the 12th-longest coastline in the world. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland. With an area of 242,500 square kilometres (93,600 sq mi), the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world. It is also the 22nd-most populous country, with an estimated 66.0 million inhabitants in 2017.

Europe Continent in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere

Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Asia to the east, and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. It comprises the westernmost part of Eurasia.

Publications

The ACCU currently publishes two journals: [1]

Professional person who is paid to undertake a specialized set of tasks and to complete them for a fee

A professional is a member of a profession or any person who earns their living from a specified professional activity. The term also describes the standards of education and training that prepare members of the profession with the particular knowledge and skills necessary to perform their specific role within that profession. In addition, most professionals are subject to strict codes of conduct, enshrining rigorous ethical and moral obligations. Professional standards of practice and ethics for a particular field are typically agreed upon and maintained through widely recognized professional associations, such as the IEEE. Some definitions of "professional" limit this term to those professions that serve some important aspect of public interest and the general good of society.

Other journals have been published by ACCU in the past. Accent was the news letter of the Silicon Valley chapter and CAUGers was the news letter of the Acorn special interest group. Overload was originally the journal of ACCU's C++ special interest group, but is no longer language-specific.

Silicon Valley Region in California, United States

Silicon Valley is a region in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California that serves as a global center for high technology, innovation and social media. It corresponds roughly to the geographical Santa Clara Valley, although its boundaries have increased in recent decades. San Jose is the Valley's largest city, the third largest in California, and the tenth largest in the United States. Other major Silicon Valley cities include Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Redwood City, Cupertino, Santa Clara, Mountain View, and Sunnyvale. The San Jose Metropolitan Area has the third highest GDP per capita in the world, according to the Brookings Institution.

Acorn Computers Ltd. was a British computer company established in Cambridge, England, in 1978. The company produced a number of computers which were especially popular in the UK, including the Acorn Electron and the Acorn Archimedes. Acorn's BBC Micro computer dominated the UK educational computer market during the 1980s. It is more known for its BBC Micromodel B computer than for its other products.

Local groups

The Silicon Valley chapter organized local meetings in San Jose. Local groups were formed in London, Bristol & Bath, Oxford, Cambridge, North East England, Southern England and Zurich. [1]

San Jose, California City in California, United States

San Jose, officially the City of San José, is the economic, cultural and political center of Silicon Valley, and the largest city in Northern California. With an estimated 2017 population of 1,035,317, it is the third-most populous city in California and the tenth-most populous in United States. Located in the center of the Santa Clara Valley, on the southern shore of San Francisco Bay, San Jose covers an area of 179.97 square miles (466.1 km2). San Jose is the county seat of Santa Clara County, the most affluent county in California and one of the most affluent counties in the United States. San Jose is the most populous city in both the San Francisco Bay Area and the San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland Combined Statistical Area, which contain 7.7 million and 8.7 million people respectively.

London Capital of the United Kingdom

London is the capital and largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, as well as the largest city within the European Union. Standing on the River Thames in the south-east of England, at the head of its 50-mile (80 km) estuary leading to the North Sea, London has been a major settlement for two millennia. Londinium was founded by the Romans. The City of London, London's ancient core − an area of just 1.12 square miles (2.9 km2) and colloquially known as the Square Mile − retains boundaries that follow closely its medieval limits. The City of Westminster is also an Inner London borough holding city status. Greater London is governed by the Mayor of London and the London Assembly.

Bristol City and county in England

Bristol is a city and county in South West England with a population of 459,300. The wider district has the 10th-largest population in England. The urban area population of 724,000 is the 8th-largest in the UK. The city borders North Somerset and South Gloucestershire, with the cities of Bath and Gloucester to the south-east and north-east, respectively. South Wales lies across the Severn estuary.

Conference

The ACCU is operated by a volunteer committee, elected at an Annual General Meeting during the annual conference each Spring which from 1997 to 2012 took place in Oxford, and for the first time in Bristol in 2013. [1] It attracts speakers from the computing community including David Abrahams, Andrei Alexandrescu, Ross J. Anderson, James Coplien, Tom Gilb, Kevlin Henney, Andrew Koenig, Simon Peyton-Jones, Eric S. Raymond, Guido van Rossum, Greg Stein, Bjarne Stroustrup (the designer and original implementor of C++), Herb Sutter and Daveed Vandevoorde.

Committee body of one or more persons that is subordinate to a deliberative assembly

A committee is a body of one or more persons that is subordinate to a deliberative assembly. Usually, the assembly sends matters into a committee as a way to explore them more fully than would be possible if the assembly itself were considering them. Committees may have different functions and their type of work differ depending on the type of the organization and its needs.

Oxford City and non-metropolitan district in England

Oxford is a university city in South East England and the county town of Oxfordshire. With a population of approximately 155,000, it is the 52nd largest city in the United Kingdom, with one of the fastest growing populations in the UK, and it remains the most ethnically diverse area in Oxfordshire county. The city is 51 miles (82 km) from London, 61 miles (98 km) from Bristol, 59 miles (95 km) from Southampton, 57 miles (92 km) from Birmingham and 24 miles (39 km) from Reading.

David Abrahams is a computer programmer and author. He is most well known for his activities related to the C++ programming language. In particular his contributions to the language include the delineating of a theory of exceptions, sitting on the C++ Standards Committee, being a founding member of Boost and co-authoring a book on the subject of template metaprogramming.

The UK Python Conference, for the Python programming language, originally started out as a track at the ACCU conference. [3]

Standardisation

ACCU supports the standardisation process for computer programming languages. ACCU provided financial sponsorship of meetings in the UK for both the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) C programming language working group and the ISO C++ working groups and helped finance travel to ECMA meetings in mainland Europe.

Mailing lists

The ACCU operates mailing lists, some of which are also open to non-members. These lists allow for general programming-orientated discussions, but also for mentored discussions. Mentored groups have included Effective C++, Python, software patterns, functional programming and XML. They are often based around study of a book.

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Python is an interpreted, high-level, general-purpose programming language. Created by Guido van Rossum and first released in 1991, Python's design philosophy emphasizes code readability with its notable use of significant whitespace. Its language constructs and object-oriented approach aims to help programmers write clear, logical code for small and large-scale projects.

C++ general purpose high-level programming language

C++ is a general-purpose programming language created by Bjarne Stroustrup as an extension of the C programming language, or "C with Classes". The language has expanded significantly over time, and modern C++ has object-oriented, generic, and functional features in addition to facilities for low-level memory manipulation. It is almost always implemented as a compiled language, and many vendors provide C++ compilers, including the Free Software Foundation, LLVM, Microsoft, Intel, and IBM, so it is available on many platforms.

Jython is an implementation of the Python programming language designed to run on the Java platform. The implementation was formerly known as JPython until 1999.

James O. Coplien, also known as Cope, is a writer, lecturer, and researcher in the field of computer science. He held the 2003–4 Vloeberghs Leerstoel at Vrije Universiteit Brussel and has been a visiting professor at University of Manchester.

GNAT Programming Studio integrated development environment

GNAT Programming Studio is a free multi-language integrated development environment (IDE) by AdaCore. GPS uses compilers from the GNU Compiler Collection, taking its name from GNAT, the GNU compiler for the Ada programming language.

PL/pgSQL procedural programming language

PL/pgSQL is a procedural programming language supported by the PostgreSQL ORDBMS. It closely resembles Oracle's PL/SQL language. Implemented by Jan Wieck, PL/pgSQL first appeared with PostgreSQL 6.4, released on October 30, 1998. Version 9 also implements some ISO SQL/PSM features, like overloading of SQL-invoked functions and procedures.

A general counsel, chief counsel, or chief legal officer (CLO) is the chief lawyer of a legal department, usually in a company or a governmental department.

In computing, a binding from a programming language to a library or operating system service is an application programming interface (API) providing glue code to use that library or service in a given programming language.

Kevlin Henney is an author, presenter, and consultant on software development. He has written on the subject of computer programming and development practice for many magazines and sites, including Better Software, The Register, C/C++ Users Journal, Application Development Advisor, JavaSpektrum, C++ Report, Java Report, EXE, and Overload. He is a member of the IEEE Software Advisory Board. Henney is also coauthor of books on patterns and editor of 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know.

Established in 1991, the non-profit Network Professional Association (NPA) is a professional association for computer network professionals. Members adhere to a code-of ethics, demonstrate continual professional development and knowledge, adhere to the latest best practice standards, and strive for continual growth. International awards for professionalism honor individuals for outstanding achievements and meeting the values of professionalism.

The Open Source Developers' Conference (OSDC) was a non-profit conference for developers of open-source software. It was started in Australia in 2004, and later expanded to Israel, Taiwan, Malaysia, France and Norway, where conferences began in 2006, 2007, 2009, 2009 and 2015, respectively. No further conferences have been held since 2015.

Herbert Schildt is an American computing author, programmer and musician. He has written books about various programming languages. He was also a founding member of the progressive rock band Starcastle.

Andrew Richard Koenig is a former AT&T and Bell Labs researcher and programmer. He is the author of C Traps and Pitfalls, co-author of Accelerated C++ and Ruminations on C++, and his name is associated with argument-dependent name lookup, also known as "Koenig lookup". He served as the Project Editor of the ISO/ANSI standards committee for C++, has authored over 150 papers on C++, and is listed as inventor on four patents.

ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 22 Programming languages, their environments and system software interfaces is a standardization subcommittee of the Joint Technical Committee ISO/IEC JTC 1 of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) that develops and facilitates standards within the fields of programming languages, their environments and system software interfaces. ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 22 is also sometimes referred to as the "portability subcommittee". The international secretariat of ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 22 is the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), located in the United States.

Linux user group

A Linux User Group or Linux Users' Group (LUG) or GNU/Linux User Group (GLUG) is a private, generally non-profit or not-for-profit organization that provides support and/or education for Linux users, particularly for inexperienced users. The term commonly refers to local groups that meet in person, but is also used to refer to online support groups that may have members spread over a very wide area and that do not organize, or are not dependent on, physical meetings. Many LUGs encompass FreeBSD and other free-software / open source Unix-based operating systems.

Concepts are an extension to C++'s templates, published as an ISO Technical Specification ISO/IEC TS 19217:2015. They are named boolean predicates on template parameters, evaluated at compile time. A concept may be associated with a template, in which case it serves as a constraint: it limits the set of arguments that are accepted as template parameters.

<i>Overload</i> (magazine) bi-monthly professional computer magazine

Overload is a bi-monthly professional computer magazine published by ACCU, that was established in 1993 and is edited by Frances Buontempo. It aims to "publish a high standard of articles about all aspects of software development". All issues of Overload, starting from August 1998, are available online.

The Norcroft C compiler in computing is a portable set of C/C++ programming tools written by Codemist, available for a wide range of processor architectures.

TiE Silicon Valley is the largest and founding chapter of the TiE brand, a non-profit organization dedicated to fostering entrepreneurship. The chapter provides technology entrepreneurs with mentoring services, networking opportunities, startup-related education, funding, and incubating.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "ACCU: Professionalism in Programming". Web site.
  2. ↑ ACCU (2006-04-22). "ACCU Constitution". ACCU. Archived from the original on 14 May 2008. Retrieved 2008-06-09.
  3. ↑ ACCU (2002-04-03). "ACCU 2002 Schedule". ACCU. Archived from the original on 4 July 2008. Retrieved 2008-06-11.
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