A good summary.

C++ - Initialization of Static Variables

by Pablo Arias

From the article:

You are probably reading this because you code in C++. This means that you have battled frustration mastering auto deduction rules or lost your sanity trying to understand why std::initializer_list was considered a good idea. Anyone who has been doing this long enough knows that variable initialization is everything but trivial. It’s a problem too essential to ignore but too challenging to master. Today I’m here to tell you that there is more to it...