v1.8.0

The soul of this release is the full refactoring and updating of the "Code Conventions" chapter:

• All code conventions have been reviewed again, adding missing items and improving the organization of the existing ones
• "Core C+"+ code convention has been fully added
• Mentioned code convention tools like clang-tidy
• All bullet points now have links to the official convention descriptions
• The chapter has been split into two lectures and organized into several subsections to improve the readability

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Introduction:

• Updated main charts: "C++ popularity" and "compute-trend"

Preparation:

• Books updated: "Professional C++", "Programming and Principles using C++"

Basic Concepts II:

• Improved "Integral data type" section: description of ptrdiff_t, added uintptr_t, added hardware relation with integral arithmetic
• Added saturation arithmetic functions C++26 for integral data types
• Improved signed integer and bitwise operations description

Basic Concepts III:

• Added C++ attributes section
• Moved "namespace" section here and added improvements: using namespace, using declaration in details
• Added alternative syntax for namespace
• Added an example of "using enum" pre-C++20

Basic Concepts IV:

• Fixed "constexpr Function - Limitations" and minor section improvements
• Described the relation between constexpr function and argument lifetime
• Better explanation and more examples for static_cast, reinterpret_cast, const_cast, bit_cast
• Added narrow_cast and "uniform initialization cast"
• Mentioned the behavior of auto within structures
• Mentioned the behavior of constexpr and structure binding
• Described volatile deprecation in C++20
• Moved pointer description before "Heap and Stack"
• Added C++23 type safe placement allocation function

Basic Concepts V:

• Added "Boost Predef" library reference for common macros
• Added template lambda emulation
• Added an example of template lambda without automatic deduction
• Added the relation between lambda expression and function
• Described recursive lambda and lambda within another lambda
• Added C++23 lambda expressions with optional parameters
• Reported GCC 14 flag -fdiagnostics-all-candidates

Object-Oriented Programming II:

• Improved Polymorphism introduction and added "C++ Mechanisms for Polymorphism"

Template and Metaprogramming II:

• Added -Wfatal-errors to "Template Debugging" section

Translation Units II:

• Improved C++ libraries section. Clarified building steps, environment variables, usage, and ABI
• Small improvements in the "compiling multiple translation units" section

Debugging:

• Added Boost::Assert and Boost::stacktrace to assertion section
• Added GWPSan Sampling-based Sanitizer
• Added additional compiler flags to help debugging

Ecosystem:

• Updated the "AI-Powered Code Completion" tools
• Books updated

Utilities:

• Added a section for random number generator for "Recent Algorithms and Performance"
• Improved the seed generation section

Advanced Topics I:

• Fixed type deduction example for array

Optimization I:

• Added new references in the "Introduction" section
• Improved "Arithmetic Intensity" section

Optimization II:

• Added a few notes about loop optimization
• Improved memory alignment section and added C++20 std::assume_aligned
• Fixed C++17 alignment function and added an example
• Updated pragma unroll compiler support
• Added a new reference for hash table comparison
• Added MSVC forceinline attribute and adopted C++11 syntax

Optimization III:

• Added official link to LLVM Bolt project and a new benchmark
• Added a benchmark for "Polyhedral Optimizations"
• Added -fprefetch-loop-arrays optimization flag
• Added userspace governor setting for cpu frequency
• Added "Hash-prospector" as replacement for PRNG
• Added optimized linear and binary search in "External libraries" section
• Added target and target_clones function attributes

Software Design I:

• Refactored "Member Functions vs. Free Functions" -> "Class Design"

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Thanks for all feedback and contributions: @FisherKKK, @JDRanpariya, @YueLu0116, @luck-tian, @D4arkShad0w, @DYNIO1999, @saveasguy, @leofracca, @Dong-kyu-Lee, @ChoiSeonMun, @viktorteren, @ChoiSeonMun, @Mati-as, @RuimingShen, @abzrg, @xintin, @russkel, @binary-manu