Summary

In this chapter, first, we discussed general advice that applies to developing low-latency applications in any programming language. We discussed the ideal software engineering approach when it comes to these applications and how to think about, design, develop, and evaluate building blocks such as the data structures and algorithms to use.

We emphasized that when it comes to low-latency application development specifically, the depth of knowledge on topics such as processor architecture, cache and memory layout and access, how the C++ programming language works under the hood, and how the compiler works to optimize your code will dictate your success. Measuring and improving performance is also a critical component for low-latency applications but we will dive into those details at the end of this book.

We spent a lot of time discussing different C++ principles, constructs, and features with the objective of understanding how they are implemented at a lower level. The...