wip: Lecture on optional and variant

lectures/optional.md

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+
+**`std::optional` and `std::expected` in Modern C++**
+--
+
+<p align="center">
+  <a href="https://youtu.be/dummy_link"><img src="https://img.youtube.com/vi/dummy_link/maxresdefault.jpg" alt="Video Thumbnail" align="right" width=50% style="margin: 0.5rem"></a>
+</p>
+
+When working with modern C++, we often need tools to handle optional values. These are useful in many situations, like when returning from a function that might fail during execution. Since C++17 we have a class `std::optional` that can be used in such situations. And since C++23 we're also getting `std::expected`. So let's chat about what these types are, when to use them and what to remember when using them.
+
+<!-- Intro -->
+
+
+## Use `std::optional` to represent optional class fields
+For example, imagine that we want to implement a game character and we have some items that they can hold in either hand.
+```cpp
+template<class Item>
+struct Character {
+  Item left_hand_item;
+  Item right_hand_item;
+};
+```
+
+The character, however, might hold nothing in their hands too, so how do we model this?
+
+We _could_ just replace the items with pointers and if there is a `nullptr` stored in either of those it would mean that the character holds no item in the corresponding hand. But this has certain drawbacks as it changes the semantics of these variables.
+```cpp
+// 😱 Who owns the items?
+template<class Item>
+struct Character {
+  Item* left_hand_item;
+  Item* right_hand_item;
+};
+```
+
+Before, our `Character` object had value semantics and now it follows pointer semantics under the hood, meaning that copying our `Character` object would become [harder](memory_and_smart_pointers.md#performing-shallow-copy-by-mistake).
+
+This is not great. The simple decision of allowing the character to have no objects in their hands forces us to actively think about memory, complicating the implementation and forcing unrelated design considerations upon us.
+
+One way to avoid this issue is to store a `std::optional<Item>` in each hand of the character instead:
+```cpp
+template<class Item>
+struct Character {
+  std::optional<Item> left_hand_item;
+  std::optional<Item> right_hand_item;
+};
+```
+
+Now it is clear just by looking at this tiny code snippet that neither item is required for the correct operation of the character. As a bonus, the object still has value semantics and can be copied and moved without any issues.
+
+Before we talk about how to use `std:::optional`, I'd like to first talk a bit about another important use-case for it - **error handling**.
+
+## Use `std::optional` to return from functions that might fail
+Let's say we have a function `GetAnswerFromLlm` that, getting a question, is supposed to answer all of our questions using some large language model.
+```cpp
+#include <string>
+
+std::string GetAnswerFromLlm(const std::string& question);
+```
+
+This is a simple interface that serves its purpose in most situations: we ask it things and get some `std::string` answers, sometimes of questionable quality. But what happens if something goes wrong within this function? What if it _cannot_ answer our question? What should this function return so that we know that an error has occurred.
+
+Largely speaking there are two schools of thought here:
+- It can throw an **exception** to indicate that some error has occurred
+- It can return a special value to indicate a failure
+
+### Why not throw an exception
+We'll have to briefly talk about the first option here if only to explain why we're not going to talk about in-depth. And I can already see people with pitchforks coming for me so do note that this is a highly-debated topic with even thoughts of [re-imagining exceptions altogether](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARYP83yNAWk).
+
+Anyway. Exceptions. Generally, at any point in our program we can `throw` an exception. It then is handled in a separate execution path, invisible to the user and can be caught at any point in the program upstream from the place where the exception was thrown by value or by reference. Yes, exceptions are polymorphic and use [runtime polymorphism](inheritance.md#using-virtual-for-interface-inheritance-and-proper-polymorphism), which is one of the issues people have with them.
+
+In our case, if, say, the network would be down and our LLM of choice would be unreachable, the `GetAnswerFromLlm` would throw an exception, say a `std::runtime_error`:
+```cpp
+#include <string>
+
+std::string GetAnswerFromLlm(const std::string& question) {
+  const auto llm_handle = GetLlmHandle();
+  if (!llm_handle) {
+    throw std::runtime_error("Cannot get LLM handle");
+  }
+  return llm_handle->GetAnswer(question);
+}
+```
+
+On the calling side, we would need to "catch" this exception using the `try`-`catch` blocks. Generally, if using exceptions for reporting errors, we wrap the code we want to execute into a `try` block that is followed by a `catch` block that handles all of our potential errors.
+```cpp
+int main() {
+  try {
+    const answer = GetAnswerFromLlm("What am I doing with ny life?");
+    std::cout << answer << std::endl;
+  } catch (std::runtime_error error) {
+    std::cerr << error << std::endl;
+  } catch (...) {
+    std::cerr << "Unexpected error happened" << std::endl;
+  }
+}
+```
+I will not talk too much about exceptions, mostly because in around a decade of using C++ professionally I very rarely worked in code bases that use exceptions. Many code bases, especially those that contain safety-critical code, ban exceptions altogether due to the fact that there is, strictly speaking, no way to guarantee how long it takes to process an exception once one is thrown because of their dynamic implementation.
+
+Furthermore, there is another thing I don't really like about them. They create a hidden logic path that can be hard to trace when reading the code.
+You see, the `catch` block that catches an exception can be in _any_ calling function and it will catch a matching exception that is thrown at any depth of the call stack.
+
+This typically means that we have to become very rigorous about what function throws which exceptions when and, in some cases, the only way to know this is by relying on a documentation of a function which, in many cases, does not fully exist or is not up to date. I firmly believe that the statement `catch (...)` is singlehandedly responsible for many errors that we've all encountered.
+
+<img src="images/error.png.webp" alt="Video Thumbnail" align="right" width=50% style="margin: 0.5rem">
+
+To be a bit more concrete, just imagine that the `LlmHandle::GetAnswer` function throws some other exception, say `std::logic_error` that we don't expect - this would lead us to showing such a `"Something happened"` message, which is not super useful to the user of our code.
+
+### Avoid the hidden error path
+All of these issues prompted people to think out of the box to avoid using exceptions but still to allow them to know that something went wrong during the execution of their function.
+
+In the olden days (before C++17), there were only three options.
+1. The first one was to return a special value from the function. When the user receives this function they know that an error has occurred:
+    ```cpp
+    #include <string>
+
+    // 😱 Not a great idea nowadays.
+    std::string GetAnswerFromLlm(const std::string& question, std::string& answer) {
+      const auto llm_handle = GetLlmHandle();
+      if (!llm_handle) { return {}; }
+      return llm_handle->GetAnswer(question);
+    }
+    ```
+    This option is not ideal because it is hard to define an appropriate "failure" value to return from most functions. For example, an empty string sounds like a good option for such a value, but then the LLM response to a query "Read this text, answer with empty string when done" would overlap with such a default value. Not great, right? We can extend the same logic of course for any string we would designate as the "failure value"
+2. Another historic option is to return an error code from the function, which required passing any values that the function had to change as a non-const reference or pointer:
+    ```cpp
+    #include <string>
+
+    // 😱 Not a great idea nowadays.
+    int GetAnswerFromLlm(const std::string& question, std::string& answer) {
+      const auto llm_handle = GetLlmHandle();
+      if (!llm_handle) { return 1; }
+      answer = llm_handle->GetAnswer(question);
+      return 0;
+    }
+    ```
+    This options is also not great. I would argue that not being able to have pure functions that get only const inputs and return a single output makes the code a lot less readable. Furthermore, modern compilers are very good at optimizing the returned value and sometimes the function that constructs this value altogether which might be a bit harder if we pass a reference to some value stored elsewhere. Although I don't know enough about the magic that the compilers do under the hood to be 100% about this second reason, so if you happen to know more - tell me!
+    <!-- In the comments below this video -->
+3. An arguably even worse but still sometimes used method (OpenGL, anyone?) is to set some global error variable if an error has occurred and explore its value after every call to see if something bad has actually happened.
+    ```cpp
+    #include <string>
+
+    // 😱 Not a great idea to have a global mutable variable.
+    inline static int last_error{};
+
+    // 😱 Not a great idea nowadays.
+    std::string GetAnswerFromLlm(const std::string& question) {
+      const auto llm_handle = GetLlmHandle();
+      if (!llm_handle) {
+        last_error = 1;
+        return {};
+      }
+      last_error = 0;
+      return llm_handle->GetAnswer(question);
+    }
+    ```
+    I believe I don't have to go into many details as to why his is not an ideal way to deal with errors: it is even less readable and more error prone than the previous method. We even have to use a mutable global variable! Good luck testing this code, especially when running a number of tests in parallel.
+
+But I would not be telling you all of this if there were no better way. This is where `std::optional` comes to the rescue. Instead of all of the horrible things we've just discussed, we can return a `std::optional<std::string>` instead of just returning a `std::string`:
+
+`llm.hpp`
+```cpp
+#include <optional>
+#include <string>
+
+std::optional<std::string> GetAnswerFromLlm(const std::string& question) {
+  const auto llm_handle = GetLlmHandle();
+  if (!llm_handle) { return {}; }
+  return llm_handle->GetAnswer(question);
+}
+```
+Now it is super clear when reading this function that it might fail because it only _optionally_ returns a string. It also forces us to deal with any potential error happening inside of this function when we call it because the _type_ or the value we get forces us to do it. No hidden error path!
+
+Note also, that the code of the function itself stayed _exactly_ the same as in the case where we would indicate an error by returning an empty string, just the return type is different!
+
+## How to work with `std::optional`
+So let's see how we could work with such a function! For this we'll call it a couple of times with various prompts and process the results that we're getting:
+
+`main.cpp`
+```cpp
+#include "llm.hpp"
+
+int main() {
+  const auto suggestion = GetAnswerFromLlm(
+    "In one word, what should I do with my life?");
+  if (!suggestion) return 1;
+  const auto further_suggestion = GetAnswerFromLlm(
+    std::string{"In one word, what should I do after doing this: "} + suggestion.value());
+  if (!further_suggestion.has_value()) return 1;
+  std::cout <<
+    "The LLM told me to " << *suggestion <<
+    ", and then to " << further_suggestion.value() << std::endl;
+  return 0;
+}
+```
+In general, `std::optional` provides an interface in which we are able to:
+- Check if it holds a value by calling its `has_value()` method or implicitly converting it to `bool`
+- Get the stored value by calling `value()` or using a dereferencing operator `*` as well as `->` should we want to call methods or ged data of an object stored in the optional wrapper. Beware, though that getting a value of an optional that holds no value is undefined behavior, so _always check_ that there is actually a value stored in an optional.
+
+## Use `std::expected` to tell why a function failed
+There is just one more quality of life improvement that we are missing here. If we receive a `std::optional` object that stores a `std::nullopt` as a result of a function call, we know that the function failed. But we don't know **why** it failed.
+
+This is why in C++23 we are getting a class `std::expected` that, while being very similar to `std::optional` has another template parameter: `std::expected<ResultT, ErrorT>` that stores the type of an error that might be stored in this object instead of the value we expect. This way, we can store arbitrary values to indicate that an error has occurred:
+```cpp
+#include <string>
+
+std::expected<std::string, std::string> GetAnswerFromLlm(const std::string& question) {
+  const auto llm_handle = GetLlmHandle();
+  if (!llm_handle) {
+    return std::unexpected{"No network"};
+  }
+  return llm_handle->GetAnswer(question);
+}
+```
+Now if we have a network outage, we can return an error that tells us about this being the case and should the `LlmHandle::GetAnswer` return an expected object of the same type too, it would automagically propagate to the caller of the `GetAnswerFromLlm` function.
+
+## How are they implemented and their performance implications
+Largely speaking, both `std::optional` and `std::expected` are both implemented as a `union` in C++, meaning that the expected and unexpected values are stored _in the same underlying memory_ with helper functions allowing us to query which one is actually stored there.
+
+This means that if the unexpected type is smaller than the expected type, there is no memory overhead. This leads us to the first performance consideration: **we should not use large types for the _unexpected_ type in `std::expected`**. Otherwise, we might be wasting a lot of memory:
+```cpp
+// 😱 Not a great idea.
+std::expected<int, HugeType> SomeFunction();
+```
+Here, instead of returning an tiny `int` object we will now always return an object that takes the same amount of memory as `HugeType`. As allocating memory is work, this will also most probably be slower than returning tiny integer numbers.
+
+The good news here is that there is not much we can do wrong with `std::optional` on this front as it holds a small `std::nullopt` type if it does not hold the expected return type.
+
+As you might have already guessed, both `std::optional` and `std::variant` are class templates. Which means that they are created and checked at compile-time. Which incidentally allows the compiler to optimize the code that uses them quite well. This in turn means that generally neither `std::optional` nor `std::expected` have much of a runtime overhead.
+
+That being said, they might not be completely for free which leads us to our second performance consideration: **if we have a very tight loop that does not use `optional` or `expected` values, we must measure the runtime of your code if we introduce those and make sure that performance is still satisfied**.
+
+Finally, there are some quirks of the compilers and how they work around optimizing the return values from the functions. If we create objects that we aim to return in a wrong way, the compiler might generate unnecessary moves or copies of the objects. Here is how to return our objects:
+<!-- TODO: example from Jason's video -->
+For more please see a [short and clear video by Jason Turner](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yJk5yfdih0) that covers this topic.
+
+## Summary
+Overall, classes like `std::optional` and `std::expected` are extremely useful to represent values that optionally hold a value. Sometimes it is enough for us to know that the value simply might not exist, that's where `std::optional` shines but sometimes we would also like to know **why** the value does not exist and that's why `std::expected` has been added.
+
+These classes are super useful - they make the code readable, maintain value semantics which is used quite often when coding in modern C++ and keep the code very performant.
+
+<!-- I hope that this video was a useful overview on why and how to use std::optional and std::expected and next time we're about to have a look at `std::variant` to also have a look at how these can be implemented. -->