TITLE: Bjarne's direction on C++0X (Source: comp.lang.c++.moderated, 1 May 2001) GLASSBOROW: "Francis Glassborow" Because this is a topic that I think may interest many of you the following is a copy of an article I have just posted to comp.std.c++ I am writing this sitting in a room at the Danish Standards in Copenhagen listening to an evening presentation by Bjarne Stroustrup launching his view of the next stage in the ongoing development of C++. We have had a number of years (three or more) of stability with an ISO Standard for C++ and failure to consider change will tend to move from stability (good for many reasons) to stagnation (put your own spin on that) BS has just suggested that we should focus on a few major topics while considering minor changes that will increase language and standard library consistency. He is floating the idea that the overall goals should include making C++ a better language for systems programming and library building. A second major goal should be to make it easier to teach and learn (aside from me -- we would still have the problem of getting those teaching to actually know what they are doing) Directions: Minimise incompatibilities with C++98 but we should face reality and accept that some changes will break exiting code (like the move form C to C++) Keep the zero overhead principle Maintain or increase type safety Avoid major extensions to the language make rules more general and uniform improve support for low level embedded programming (note BS explicitly does not want to see C++ become an exclusively high level language) Increase library support for platform independence support distributed programming (actually, programming for distributed systems) He says that if we are ambitious in library development (something he is advocating) we need to accept that some developments will not be supportable on all platforms. At this stage he is beginning to explore specific ideas for library development. I will leave the specifics for later contributors to add. The intention of this posting is to alert the serious C++ community to the fact that the C++ standards committees are now willing to listen (after a long day of working on defects in the current standard) to the originator of C++ make suggestions for ways in which we might move forward. You should not get the idea that we are about to launch a basket of changes and destabilise what we have. What we are sitting on is a watershed when we move from purely correcting and clarifying what we have already done to considering how we might make the good even better. I am sure that BS's current presentation will be heard and refined many times over the next few years. If you are responsible for organising meetings, conferences or write for journals and magazines take the opportunity to invite BS to contribute his vision of the future of C++. But remember that this should be a shared vision. The readers of this posting (here and copied to clc++m) are those that should be adding clarity to the vision. We each have our own pet ideas, but we should listen as well as talk. Change should come from a consensus of the C++ programming community in the large rather than just that of the Standards Committees. That consensus requires an investment of time, any time you find yourself muttering 'someone ought to do something about that' remember that you are someone. This writer can see a danger in some enthusiasts being so determined to get their pet item into C++0x that they will be blind to the larger picture. I think that is enough for now apart from drawing your attention to the fact that you read this here first and it was ACCU that brought it to you attention. _______________________________________________ cpptips mailing list http://cpptips.hyperformix.com