Is C++0x collapsing under the weight of new features and the standardization process?

Question

From Dr. Dobbs:

Concepts were to have been the central new feature in C++0x

Even after cutting "concepts," the next C++ standard may be delayed. Sadly, there will be no C++0x (unless you count the minor corrections in C++03). We must wait for C++1x, and hope that 'x' will be a low digit. There is hope because C++1x is now feature complete (excepting the possibility of some national standards bodies effectively insisting on some feature present in the formal proposal for the standard). "All" that is left is the massive work of resolving outstanding technical issues and comments.

I was on the bleeding edge of MT- and MP-safe C++ programming circa 1997 - 2000. We had to do many things ourselves. It's a bit shocking that the standard has not addressed concurrency in the 9 years since.

So what's the big deal?

Answer 1

No.

I'm not sure what makes you'd think it is. The Dr.Dobbs article doesn't imply that it's the case.

It is a big update, which means a lot of work polishing up the the language spec and fixing errors. That's neither new nor surprising.

And the ISO standardization process takes time. That's not new either. The article you posted says just that -- there's work to be done, but the sky is not falling, it's pretty basic and low-risk work they'll be doing from now on.

There are a couple of reasons why it's taken so long:

The obvious is that they're making a lot of changes, and a few features turned out bigger than expected, and had to be cut. That much goes without saying and is responsible for the delays.

The less obvious, but just as important factor is that they wanted a long time to pass since C++98. They wanted to give the language time to stabilize and mature, get lots of use experience with current language features, and give compilers time to catch up. Until a few years ago, C++ just wasn't ready to be updated. Big commercial compilers were still a mess, and too many people still weren't comfortable with modern C++ design.

That's why things like multithreading has not been addressed until now. It didn't make it in C++98, and they didn't want to make changes too soon after that.

I don't know which year they originally hoped to target, but I doubt it was earlier than 2007 or so. So yes, the new standard has been delayed a bit, but not because the language is "collapsing".

Answer 2

No, they are just aware of the responsibility they have. There are a lot of people affected by the decisions of the standard comittee.

Answer 3

Stroustrup was one of the voters to remove Concepts finally. I don't see C++ collapsing, instead I see that the C++ committee is doing its job. Half-baked features are not the solution for a robust language like C++. A look at what is going to be in C++0x tells you the opposite of what you are saying. Finally, I don't mind to wait to get something good forever, instead of something good for a while :)