Re: Do we need all that stuff in the standard? (renamed: Re: C++14: Papers)

From:
Bo Persson <bop@gmb.dk>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++
Date:
Wed, 10 Apr 2013 20:59:43 +0200
Message-ID:
<aslr4tF2u6qU1@mid.individual.net>
Martin Ba skrev 2013-04-10 16:00:

On 07.04.2013 13:09, Rui Maciel wrote:

Alain Ketterlin wrote:

Many items on this list are library issues/proposals, and many of them
are orthogonal to each other.

I'm no language lawyer, but I really think we should split the standard
into two parts: one for the core language itself, another (or more) for
the libraries. This would make the standardization of libraries faster
(I guess), which would also provide more feedback to those in charge of
the core.


I would go a slightlly different route: stop adding library stuff to the
standard, and instead make them available through Boost or a Boost-like
library aggregator service with a license that authorizes all forms of
use.
There is absolutely no need to standardize a component if it's
possible to
freely download and install it on any computer, or even store the source
files in the project tree.


What I have been wondering on occasion is whether including all these
great features in the standard will make C++ code *less* portable in the
end.

The bigger and more complex the std-library gets, the more likely it
gets that different vendor implementations would have subtle differences
that would break portability vs. having a single-source library (like
Boost) that uses at least the "same" source code on all platforms.


Boost is definitely NOT using the same source code on all platforms. It
uses tons of configuration macros and workarounds to make the
implementation compile on all supported compilers.

In some of the Boost libraries it is actually hard to find any code at
all without first going through 10 layers of macros and system specific
include files.

Bo Persson

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