ACCU (organisation)
Encyclopedia
ACCU is a non-profit, worldwide user group of people interested in software development
, dedicated to raising the standard of programming. Originally, the association
was mainly for C
programmers, but it has expanded over time to include all programming language
s, especially C++
, C#, Java
, Perl
and Python
.
The ACCU publishes two journals and organizes a conference annually in or near Oxford
.
, elected at an Annual General Meeting
which usually takes place during the
annual ACCU conference each Spring in or near Oxford
.
As the formal name suggests, the organisation was originally created for people in the United Kingdom
. However, the membership is now worldwide, predominantly Europe
an and North American
, but also with members from central and southern America, Australasia
, Africa
and Asia
.
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.
Chapter has long organized local meetings in San Jose
. In recent years, local groups have been formed in London
, Cambridge
, North East England
, Oxford
, Southern England
and Zurich
.
. It often attracts well-known figures within the computing community as speakers; 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, among others.
The UK Python Conference, for the Python
language, originally started out as a track
at the ACCU conference.
s. ACCU has provided financial sponsorship of meetings in the UK for both the ISO C
working group and the ISO C++
working groups. Additionally, ACCU has helped finance travel of UK experts to ECMA
meetings in mainland Europe.
A number of ACCU members are also members of their national standards organization
' groups that send delegates to the ISO working group meetings. Several members of the United Kingdom
's national body's sub-committees, the IST5 committee of the British Standards Institution, are also ACCU members. The working groups are developing the next versions of various programming language standards, specifically for C
and C++
.
s, some of which are also open to non-members. These lists allow for general programming-orientated discussions, but also for mentor
ed discussions.
Past mentored groups have included Effective C++, Python
, Software Patterns
, Functional programming
and XML
. They are often based around study of a book.
Software development
Software development is the development of a software product...
, dedicated to raising the standard of programming. Originally, the association
Voluntary association
A voluntary association or union is a group of individuals who enter into an agreement as volunteers to form a body to accomplish a purpose.Strictly speaking, in many jurisdictions no formalities are necessary to start an association...
was mainly for C
C (programming language)
C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system....
programmers, but it has expanded over time to include all programming language
Programming language
A programming language is an artificial language designed to communicate instructions to a machine, particularly a computer. Programming languages can be used to create programs that control the behavior of a machine and/or to express algorithms precisely....
s, especially C++
C++
C++ is a statically typed, free-form, multi-paradigm, compiled, general-purpose programming language. It is regarded as an intermediate-level language, as it comprises a combination of both high-level and low-level language features. It was developed by Bjarne Stroustrup starting in 1979 at Bell...
, C#, Java
Java (programming language)
Java is a programming language originally developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems and released in 1995 as a core component of Sun Microsystems' Java platform. The language derives much of its syntax from C and C++ but has a simpler object model and fewer low-level facilities...
, Perl
Perl
Perl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Perl was originally developed by Larry Wall in 1987 as a general-purpose Unix scripting language to make report processing easier. Since then, it has undergone many changes and revisions and become widely popular...
and Python
Python (programming language)
Python is a general-purpose, high-level programming language whose design philosophy emphasizes code readability. Python claims to "[combine] remarkable power with very clear syntax", and its standard library is large and comprehensive...
.
The ACCU publishes two journals and organizes a conference annually in or near Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
.
History
ACCU was formed in 1987 by Martin Houston. The original name of the organisation was C Users' Group (UK) and this remains the formal name of the organisation today, although it adopted the public name Association of C and C++ Users for the period 1993-2006, and adopted the shorter form ACCU from 2006 onward. The ACCU is operated by a volunteer committeeCommittee
A committee is a type of small deliberative assembly that is usually intended to remain subordinate to another, larger deliberative assembly—which when organized so that action on committee requires a vote by all its entitled members, is called the "Committee of the Whole"...
, elected at an Annual General Meeting
Annual general meeting
An annual general meeting is a meeting that official bodies, and associations involving the public , are often required by law to hold...
which usually takes place during the
annual ACCU conference each Spring in or near Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
.
As the formal name suggests, the organisation was originally created for people in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
. However, the membership is now worldwide, predominantly Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
an and North American
North American
North American generally refers to an entity, people, group, or attribute of North America, especially of the United States and Canada together.-Culture:*North American English, a collective term used to describe American English and Canadian English...
, but also with members from central and southern America, Australasia
Australasia
Australasia is a region of Oceania comprising Australia, New Zealand, the island of New Guinea, and neighbouring islands in the Pacific Ocean. The term was coined by Charles de Brosses in Histoire des navigations aux terres australes...
, Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
and Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
.
Publications
The ACCU currently publishes two journals.- C Vu is a members-only journal which acts as the association's news letter and carries book reviews, articles on software development and a number of regular columns such as Student Code Critique and Professionalism in Programming.
- Overload aims to carry more in-depth articles aimed at professionalProfessionalA professional is a person who is paid to undertake a specialised set of tasks and to complete them for a fee. The traditional professions were doctors, lawyers, clergymen, and commissioned military officers. Today, the term is applied to estate agents, surveyors , environmental scientists,...
software developers. Topics range from programming and design through to process and management. Overload is available online to members and non-members free of charge.
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
Acorn Computers
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. These included the Acorn Electron, the BBC Micro, and the Acorn Archimedes...
special interest group
Special Interest Group
A Special Interest Group is a community with an interest in advancing a specific area of knowledge, learning or technology where members cooperate to effect or to produce solutions within their particular field, and may communicate, meet, and organize conferences...
. Overload was originally the journal of ACCU's C++ special interest group
Special Interest Group
A Special Interest Group is a community with an interest in advancing a specific area of knowledge, learning or technology where members cooperate to effect or to produce solutions within their particular field, and may communicate, meet, and organize conferences...
, but is no longer language-specific.
Local groups
The Silicon ValleySilicon Valley
Silicon Valley is a term which refers to the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California in the United States. The region is home to many of the world's largest technology corporations...
Chapter has long organized local meetings in San Jose
San Jose, California
San Jose is the third-largest city in California, the tenth-largest in the U.S., and the county seat of Santa Clara County which is located at the southern end of San Francisco Bay...
. In recent years, local groups have been formed in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, Cambridge
Cambridge
The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...
, North East England
North East England
North East England is one of the nine official regions of England. It covers Northumberland, County Durham, Tyne and Wear, and Teesside . The only cities in the region are Durham, Newcastle upon Tyne and Sunderland...
, Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
, Southern England
Southern England
Southern England, the South and the South of England are imprecise terms used to refer to the southern counties of England bordering the English Midlands. It has a number of different interpretations of its geographic extents. The South is considered by many to be a cultural region with a distinct...
and Zurich
Zürich
Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...
.
Conference
The ACCU conference is held annually in or near OxfordOxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
. It often attracts well-known figures within the computing community as speakers; including David Abrahams, Andrei Alexandrescu
Andrei Alexandrescu
Andrei Alexandrescu is a Romanian C++ programmer and author. He is particularly known for his pioneering work on policy-based design implemented via template metaprogramming. These ideas are articulated in his book Modern C++ Design and were first implemented in his programming library, Loki. He...
, Ross J. Anderson, James Coplien, Tom Gilb
Tom Gilb
Tom Gilb is an American systems engineer, consultant, and author, known for the development of software metric, software inspection, and evolutionary processes.- Biography :...
, Kevlin Henney
Kevlin Henney
Kevlin Henney is an author who writes on the subject of computer programming in C and C++ for magazines such as the C/C++ Users Journal, Application Development Advisor, JavaSpektrum, C++ Report, Java Report, EXE, and Overload....
, Andrew Koenig
Andrew Koenig (programmer)
Andrew R. 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++ & Ruminations on C++, and his name is associated with argument-dependent name lookup, also known as "Koenig lookup"...
, Simon Peyton-Jones, Eric S. Raymond
Eric S. Raymond
Eric Steven Raymond , often referred to as ESR, is an American computer programmer, author and open source software advocate. After the 1997 publication of The Cathedral and the Bazaar, Raymond was for a number of years frequently quoted as an unofficial spokesman for the open source movement...
, Guido van Rossum
Guido van Rossum
Guido van Rossum is a Dutch computer programmer who is best known as the author of the Python programming language. In the Python community, Van Rossum is known as a "Benevolent Dictator For Life" , meaning that he continues to oversee the Python development process, making decisions where necessary...
, Greg Stein
Greg Stein
Greg Stein , living in Fairfax, VA, USA, is a programmer, speaker, sometime standards architect, and open-source software advocate, appearing frequently at conferences and in interviews on the topic of open-source software development and use.He is a director of the Apache Software Foundation, and...
, Bjarne Stroustrup
Bjarne Stroustrup
Bjarne Stroustrup ; born December 30, 1950 in Århus, Denmark) is a Danish computer scientist, most notable for the creation and the development of the widely used C++ programming language...
(the designer and original implementor of C++
C++
C++ is a statically typed, free-form, multi-paradigm, compiled, general-purpose programming language. It is regarded as an intermediate-level language, as it comprises a combination of both high-level and low-level language features. It was developed by Bjarne Stroustrup starting in 1979 at Bell...
), Herb Sutter
Herb Sutter
Herb Sutter is a prominent C++ expert. He is also a book author and a columnist for Dr. Dobb's Journal. He joined Microsoft in 2002 as a platform evangelist for Visual C++ .NET, rising to lead software architect for C++/CLI. Sutter served as secretary and convener of the ISO C++ standards committee...
and Daveed Vandevoorde, among others.
The UK Python Conference, for the Python
Python (programming language)
Python is a general-purpose, high-level programming language whose design philosophy emphasizes code readability. Python claims to "[combine] remarkable power with very clear syntax", and its standard library is large and comprehensive...
language, originally started out as a track
Academic conference
An academic conference or symposium is a conference for researchers to present and discuss their work. Together with academic or scientific journals, conferences provide an important channel for exchange of information between researchers.-Overview:Conferences are usually composed of various...
at the ACCU conference.
Standardisation Involvement
ACCU actively supports the standardisation process for computer programming languageProgramming language
A programming language is an artificial language designed to communicate instructions to a machine, particularly a computer. Programming languages can be used to create programs that control the behavior of a machine and/or to express algorithms precisely....
s. ACCU has provided financial sponsorship of meetings in the UK for both the ISO C
C (programming language)
C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system....
working group and the ISO C++
C++
C++ is a statically typed, free-form, multi-paradigm, compiled, general-purpose programming language. It is regarded as an intermediate-level language, as it comprises a combination of both high-level and low-level language features. It was developed by Bjarne Stroustrup starting in 1979 at Bell...
working groups. Additionally, ACCU has helped finance travel of UK experts to ECMA
Ecma International
Ecma International is an international, private non-profit standards organization for information and communication systems. It acquired its name in 1994, when the European Computer Manufacturers Association changed its name to reflect the organization's global reach and activities...
meetings in mainland Europe.
A number of ACCU members are also members of their national standards organization
Standards organization
A standards organization, standards body, standards developing organization , or standards setting organization is any organization whose primary activities are developing, coordinating, promulgating, revising, amending, reissuing, interpreting, or otherwise producing technical standards that are...
' groups that send delegates to the ISO working group meetings. Several members of the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
's national body's sub-committees, the IST5 committee of the British Standards Institution, are also ACCU members. The working groups are developing the next versions of various programming language standards, specifically for C
C (programming language)
C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system....
and C++
C++
C++ is a statically typed, free-form, multi-paradigm, compiled, general-purpose programming language. It is regarded as an intermediate-level language, as it comprises a combination of both high-level and low-level language features. It was developed by Bjarne Stroustrup starting in 1979 at Bell...
.
Mailing Lists
The ACCU operates a number of mailing listMailing list
A mailing list is a collection of names and addresses used by an individual or an organization to send material to multiple recipients. The term is often extended to include the people subscribed to such a list, so the group of subscribers is referred to as "the mailing list", or simply "the...
s, some of which are also open to non-members. These lists allow for general programming-orientated discussions, but also for mentor
Mentor
In Greek mythology, Mentor was the son of Alcimus or Anchialus. In his old age Mentor was a friend of Odysseus who placed Mentor and Odysseus' foster-brother Eumaeus in charge of his son Telemachus, and of Odysseus' palace, when Odysseus left for the Trojan War.When Athena visited Telemachus she...
ed discussions.
Past mentored groups have included Effective C++, Python
Python (programming language)
Python is a general-purpose, high-level programming language whose design philosophy emphasizes code readability. Python claims to "[combine] remarkable power with very clear syntax", and its standard library is large and comprehensive...
, Software Patterns
Design pattern (computer science)
In software engineering, a design pattern is a general reusable solution to a commonly occurring problem within a given context in software design. A design pattern is not a finished design that can be transformed directly into code. It is a description or template for how to solve a problem that...
, Functional programming
Functional programming
In computer science, functional programming is a programming paradigm that treats computation as the evaluation of mathematical functions and avoids state and mutable data. It emphasizes the application of functions, in contrast to the imperative programming style, which emphasizes changes in state...
and XML
XML
Extensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....
. They are often based around study of a book.