What are the benefits of compiler support for static type introspection? What are the costs? This talk introduces the library-level solutions for reflection in C++ and gives a brief comparison to ther languages, then dives into an analysis of the recent reflection proposals to the C++ standard: P0194 (colloquially known as the "reflexpr" proposal) versus P0590R0 (the "operator $ proposal) and their reference implementations in Clang. Through several code examples, we will compare the power, expressiveness, and limitations of these proposals. If time permits, we'll explore how reflection fits into the future direction of C++ metaprogramming and how it could interact with other milestone features for C++20.
