ACCU, previously known as the Association of C and C++ Users, is a non-profit

user group A users' group (also user's group or user group) is a type of Club (organization), club focused on the use of a particular technology, usually (but not always) computer-related. Overview Users' groups started in the early days of Mainframe compu ...

of people interested in

software development Software development is the process of designing and Implementation, implementing a software solution to Computer user satisfaction, satisfy a User (computing), user. The process is more encompassing than Computer programming, programming, wri ...

, dedicated to raising the standard of

computer programming Computer programming or coding is the composition of sequences of instructions, called computer program, programs, that computers can follow to perform tasks. It involves designing and implementing algorithms, step-by-step specifications of proc ...

. The ACCU publishes two journals and organizes an annual conference.

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 1993–2003, and adopted the shorter form ''ACCU'' from 2003 onward. As the formal name suggests, the organisation was originally created for people in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

. However, the membership is worldwide, predominantly

Europe 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, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

an and

North American North America is a continent in the Northern and Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Caribbean Sea, and to the sou ...

, but also with members from central and southern America,

Australasia Australasia is a subregion of Oceania, comprising Australia, New Zealand (overlapping with Polynesia), and sometimes including New Guinea and surrounding islands (overlapping with Melanesia). The term is used in a number of different context ...

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

and

Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...

. Originally, the

voluntary association A voluntary group or union (also sometimes called a voluntary organization, common-interest association, association, or society) is a group of individuals who enter into an agreement, usually as volunteers, to form a body (or organization) to a ...

was mainly for C

programmers A programmer, computer programmer or coder is an author of computer source code someone with skill in computer programming. The professional titles ''software developer'' and ''software engineer'' are used for jobs that require a program ...

, but it has expanded over time to include all

programming language A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Programming languages are described in terms of their Syntax (programming languages), syntax (form) and semantics (computer science), semantics (meaning), usually def ...

s, especially C++, C#,

Java Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...

Perl Perl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Though Perl is not officially an acronym, there are various backronyms in use, including "Practical Extraction and Reporting Language". Perl was developed ...

and

Python Python may refer to: Snakes * Pythonidae, a family of nonvenomous snakes found in Africa, Asia, and Australia ** ''Python'' (genus), a genus of Pythonidae found in Africa and Asia * Python (mythology), a mythical serpent Computing * Python (prog ...

Publications

The ACCU currently publishes two journals: * ''C Vu'' is a members-only journal which acts as the association's newsletter and carries book reviews, articles on software development and a number of regular columns such as ''Student Code Critique'' and ''Professionalism in Programming''. It was edited by Phil Stubbington from its first issue until 1991. * '' Overload'' aims to carry more in-depth articles aimed at

professional A professional is a member of a profession or any person who work (human activity), works in a specified professional activity. The term also describes the standards of education and training that prepare members of the profession with the partic ...

software developers A programmer, computer programmer or coder is an author of computer source code someone with skill in computer programming. The professional titles Software development, ''software developer'' and Software engineering, ''software engineer' ...

. 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 Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that is a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical area of the Santa Clara Valley ...

chapter and ''CAUGers'' was the news letter of the

Acorn The acorn is the nut (fruit), nut of the oaks and their close relatives (genera ''Quercus'', ''Notholithocarpus'' and ''Lithocarpus'', in the family Fagaceae). It usually contains a seedling surrounded by two cotyledons (seedling leaves), en ...

special interest group A special interest group (SIG) is a community within a larger organization with a shared interest in advancing a specific area of knowledge, learning or technology where members cooperate to effect or to produce solutions within their particular f ...

. Overload was originally the journal of ACCU's C++ special interest group, but is no longer language-specific.

Local groups

The Silicon Valley chapter organized local meetings in San Jose. Local groups were formed in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

Bristol Bristol () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, the most populous city in the region. Built around the River Avon, Bristol, River Avon, it is bordered by t ...

Bath Bath may refer to: * Bathing, immersion in a fluid ** Bathtub, a large open container for water, in which a person may wash their body ** Public bathing, a public place where people bathe * Thermae, ancient Roman public bathing facilities Plac ...

Oxford Oxford () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and non-metropolitan district in Oxfordshire, England, of which it is the county town. The city is home to the University of Oxford, the List of oldest universities in continuou ...

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...

North East England North East England, commonly referred to simply as the North East within England, is one of nine official regions of England. It consists of County DurhamNorthumberland, , Northumberland, Tyne and Wear and part of northern North Yorkshire. ...

Southern England Southern England, also known as the South of England or the South, is a sub-national part of England. Officially, it is made up of the southern, south-western and part of the eastern parts of England, consisting of the statistical regions of ...

York York is a cathedral city in North Yorkshire, England, with Roman Britain, Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers River Ouse, Yorkshire, Ouse and River Foss, Foss. It has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a Yor ...

and

Zurich Zurich (; ) is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich. , the municipality had 448,664 inhabitants. The ...

Conference

The ACCU is operated by a volunteer

committee A committee or commission is a body of one or more persons subordinate to a deliberative assembly or other form of organization. A committee may not itself be considered to be a form of assembly or a decision-making body. Usually, an assembly o ...

, elected at an

Annual General Meeting An annual general meeting (AGM, also known as the annual meeting) is a meeting of the general membership of an organization. These organizations include membership associations and companies with shareholders. These meetings may be required ...

during the annual conference each Spring which from 1997 to 2012 took place in

, and for the first time in

in 2013. It attracts speakers from the computing community including David Abrahams,

Andrei Alexandrescu Tudor Andrei Cristian Alexandrescu (born 1969) is a Romanian-American C++ and D language programmer and author. He is particularly known for his pioneering work on policy-based design implemented via template metaprogramming. These ideas are a ...

, Ross J. Anderson, James Coplien, Tom Gilb,

Kevlin Henney Kevlin Henney is an English 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'', ' ...

Andrew Koenig Joshua Andrew Koenig (; August 17, 1968 – February 16, 2010) was an American character actor, film director, editor, writer, and human rights activist. He was known for his role as Richard "Boner" Stabone in ''Growing Pains''. Early li ...

, Simon Peyton-Jones,

Eric S. Raymond Eric Steven Raymond (born December 4, 1957), often referred to as ESR, is an American software developer, open-source software advocate, and author of the 1997 essay and 1999 book ''The Cathedral and the Bazaar''. He wrote a guidebook for the R ...

Guido van Rossum Guido van Rossum (; born 31 January 1956) is a Dutch programmer. He is the creator of the Python programming language, for which he was the " benevolent dictator for life" (BDFL) until he stepped down from the position on 12 July 2018. He ...

Greg Stein Greg Stein (born March 16, 1967, in Portland, Oregon), living in Austin, Texas, United States, is a programmer, speaker, sometime standards architect, and open-source software advocate, appearing frequently at conferences and in interviews on th ...

Bjarne Stroustrup Bjarne Stroustrup (; ; born 30 December 1950) is a Danish computer scientist, known for the development of the C++ programming language. He led the Large-scale Programming Research department at Bell Labs, served as a professor of computer sci ...

(the designer and original implementor of C++), Herb Sutter and Daveed Vandevoorde. The UK Python Conference, for the Python programming language, originally started out as a track at the ACCU conference.

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 The International Organization for Standardization (ISO ; ; ) is an independent, non-governmental, international standard development organization composed of representatives from the national standards organizations of member countries. M ...

(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 list A mailing list is a collection of names and addresses used by an individual or an organization to send material to multiple recipients. Mailing lists are often rented or sold. If rented, the renter agrees to use the mailing list only at contra ...

s, some of which are also open to non-members. These lists allow for general programming-orientated discussions, but also for

mentor Mentorship is the patronage, influence, guidance, or direction given by a mentor. A mentor is someone who teaches or gives help and advice to a less experienced and often younger person. In an organizational setting, a mentor influences the perso ...

ed discussions. Mentored groups have included ''Effective C++'', Python, software patterns,

functional programming In computer science, functional programming is a programming paradigm where programs are constructed by Function application, applying and Function composition (computer science), composing Function (computer science), functions. It is a declarat ...

and

XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing data. It defines a set of rules for encoding electronic document, documents in a format that is both human-readable and Machine-r ...

. They are often based around study of a book.

References

External links

ACCU Official Site

(with back issues of CAUGers)
CUG

ACCU Silicon Valley Chapter
{{DEFAULTSORT:Accu (Organisation) User groups C++ Organizations established in 1987 1987 establishments in the United Kingdom