Matthew Wilson (author)
Matthew Wilson is a software engineer and author. Specializing in C/C++, he May Be best known for his time as columnist and contributing editor for C/C++ Users Journal, but has also written articles for a number of other publications, as well as publishing two books on C++: Imperfect C++ (2004), and Extended STL, volume 1 (2007).
Wilson has founded, and contributed substantially, to several open-source organisations, most notable of which are the Pantheios logging API library and the STLSoft C++ Libraries. He is director of the Australian software engineering consultancy company Synesis Software.
Wilson's work, and publications, are characterised by an unwillingness to accept the limitations imposed by technology, or by received wisdoms.
Books
Wilson's first book, Imperfect C++: Practical Solutions for Real-Life Programming, was published in 2004. At over 550 pages, it addresses many things that Wilson perceive as imperfections of the C++ language, tackling such diverse subjects as multidimensional arrays, threading, the shim concept, optimised string concatenation, and C++ properties.
This was followed in 2007 with Extended STL, volume 1: Collections and Iterators, which is the first of two volumes covering STL extension theory and techniques.
According to the site for Extended STL, Wilson's next book will be called Breaking Up The Monolith: Advanced C++ Design without Compromise, and will be published in 2009.
Libraries
Wilson has written, or co-written, the following libraries:
- STLSoft C++ Libraries
- b64 Base-64 conversion library
- FastFormat efficient formatting library
- flecxx abstraction harmonizer library
- Open-RJ Record-Jar API
- Pantheios C++ logging API library
- recls recursive file-system search
- shwild shell-compatible wildcards
- VOLE C++ COM/Automation driver
- xContract software contract enforcement library
- xTests Unit testing framework