Trip Report: C++ Standards Meeting in Albuquerque, November 2017--Botond Ballo

By Adrien Hamelin | Nov 21, 2017 01:13 PM | Tags: community c++20

A thorough and detailed summary of the recent six-day meeting.

Trip Report: C++ Standards Meeting in Albuquerque, November 2017

by Botond Ballo

From the article:

A couple of weeks ago I attended a meeting of the ISO C++ Standards Committee (also known as WG21) in Albuquerque, New Mexico. This was the third committee meeting in 2017; you can find my reports on previous meetings here (February 2017, Kona) and here (July 2017, Toronto). These reports, particularly the Toronto one, provide useful context for this post.

With the final C++17 International Standard (IS) having been voted for publication, this meeting was focused on C++20, and the various Technical Specifications (TS) we have in flight, most notably Modules...

N4705: WG21 2017-10-27 Telecon Minutes -- Jonathan Wakely

By Blog Staff | Oct 31, 2017 03:44 PM | Tags: None

A new WG21 paper is available. If you are not a committee member, please use the comments section below or the std-proposals forum for public discussion.

Document number: N4705

Date: 2017-10-30

WG21 2017-10-27 Telecon Minutes

by Jonathan Wakely

2017-10 pre-Albuquerque mailing available

By Blog Staff | Oct 23, 2017 09:26 AM | Tags: None

The full 2017-10 mailing of new standards papers is now available.

N4693: PL22.16/WG21 draft agenda: 06-11 Nov 2017, Albuquerque, NM, US -- Clark Nelson

By Blog Staff | Aug 26, 2017 01:51 PM | Tags: None

A new WG21 paper is available. If you are not a committee member, please use the comments section below or the std-proposals forum for public discussion.

Document number: N4693

Date: 2017-08-12

PL22.16/WG21 draft agenda: 06-11 Nov 2017, Albuquerque, NM, US

by Clark Nelson

Video: C++ Concepts TS and Request for Input -- everythingcpp

By rwdougla | Aug 15, 2017 07:09 AM | Tags: c++20

This video teaches the Concepts syntax and motivation, with a request for viewers to try it out for themselves, to submit back their usage, to help guide a paper for the upcoming Albuquerque meeting.

C++ Concepts Intro: Need Your Input

by everythingcpp

From the article:

C++20 is slated to add most of the contents of the Concepts Technical Specification. Concerns about teach/learn-ability and usage preferences has kept some features from going in. This video covers introductory material on Concepts in C++ as it is in the technical specification. Afterward, I would like to hear from you!

GoingNative 60: ISO C++ @Toronto Debriefing--Steve Carroll

By Adrien Hamelin | Aug 14, 2017 02:52 PM | Tags: community

The new Going Native is out!

GoingNative 60: ISO C++ @Toronto Debriefing

by Steve Carroll

From the article:

In this episode of GoingNative, Steve Carroll chats with Gabriel Dos Reis and Billy O'Neal about what happened at the C++ standards meeting in Toronto, Canada.

2017-07 post-Toronto mailing available

By Blog Staff | Aug 8, 2017 09:49 AM | Tags: None

The full 2017-07 mailing of new standards papers is now available.

Trip Report: C++ Standards Meeting in Toronto, July 2017--Botond Ballo

By Adrien Hamelin | Aug 4, 2017 01:20 PM | Tags: experimental community

Another report:

Trip Report: C++ Standards Meeting in Toronto, July 2017

by Botond Ballo

From the article:

A couple of weeks ago I attended a meeting of the ISO C++ Standards Committee (also known as WG21) in Toronto, Canada (which, incidentally, is where I’m based). This was the second committee meeting in 2017; you can find my reports on previous meetings here (November 2016, Issaquah) and here (February 2017, Kona). These reports, particularly the Kona one, provide useful context for this post.

What should the ISO C++ Standards Committee be doing?

By Bjarne Stroustrup | Jul 31, 2017 05:44 AM | Tags: None

What should the ISO C++ Standards Committee be doing?

Bjarne Stroustrup

There is a lot of talk within the committee and outside about how to chose what to work on, what processes will work best for handling proposals, and how to maintain a direction for the language.

In January, a group of heads of national delegations submitted a document entitled Operating principles for evolving C++ and the committee constituted a small group of experienced members to try to develop and maintain direction of the standards effort.

In June, Titus Winters and the members of the direction group submitted a follow-up document: C++ Stability, Velocity, and Deployment starting the process of making the principles real. This document was presented at the Toronto meeting to about 80 members in an evening session. It was very well received.

We are working to make the suggestions from those papers concrete to improve the standards process, and eventually help improve C++ and its ISO standard. Here, I would like to direct attention to one part of that document:

Proposal – “Our Promise To Users” a.k.a

“The C++ Programmers’ Bill of Rights.”

We, the ISO C++ Standards Committee, promise to the best of our ability to deliver the
following, assuming user code adheres to the current standard:

1. Compile-time stability: Every change in behavior in a new version of the standard is detectable by a compiler for the previous version.
2. Link-time stability: ABI breakage is avoided except in very rare cases, which will be welldocumented and supported by a written rationale.
3. Compiler performance stability: Changes will not imply significant added compile-time costs for existing code.
4. Run-time Performance stability: Changes will not imply added run-time costs to existing code.
5. Progress: Every revision of the standard will offer improved support for some significant programming activity or community.
6. Simplicity: Every revision of the standard will offer some simplification of some significant programming activity.
7. Timeliness: The next revision of the standard will be shipped on time according to a published schedule.

Note “to the best of our abilities”. These are guiding principles, rather than executable statements. For example, if I add a function to a header file, the compilation of code that includes that header will slow down imperceptibly. That’s understood and could be argued not to be “existing code” because of the change. Adding enormous amounts of code to a header so that compilation slowed down noticeably
would be another matter.

These are ideals. They are what we would like to see done. I we succeed, most users will be very happy. However, they are not a recipe we could blindly follow to deliver a new standard. As is typical for ideals, they can conflict: there are tensions among the desired goals. This is common: Ideally, we want quality, on-time delivery, and low cost of products, but we know from vast experience that it is very hard to get all three. We want freedom of speech and absence of verbal intimidation, but balancing those two can be very hard. It is the same for the ideals of the “The C++ Bill of Rights”; we want all, but the committee will have to make hard choices.

These are ideals. They are meant to be rather grand statements, rather than nit-picked long sentences with every statement watered down by adjectives and caveats. It will be up to the committee members to interpret the ideals for real design and scheduling problems.

There are just 7 ideals listed and they are quite general. We could add many more, but a laundry list of specifics, would dull the appeal and be impossible to remember in the heat of discussions about direction, what can be delivered when, and specific technical concerns.

So, what do you think? Should the committee formally commit to this? Can it be improved? How? Obviously, we need a discussion within the committee and in the community in general before deciding on anything.

Trip Report: My First ISO C++ Standards Meeting -- Guy Davidson

By Guy | Jul 16, 2017 05:02 PM | Tags: None

Do YOU remember your first standard meeting?

Trip Report: My first ISO C++ Standards meeting

By Guy Davidson

From the article:

This was my first standards meeting and I didn’t really know what to expect: I’ve read many trip reports but they tend to speak of the results more than the process. This post will describe more of the process.