Balloting has completed for C++26.
Unfortunately it was Disapproved
P-Members voting: 12 in favor out of 20 = 60 % (requirement >= 66.66%)
(P-Members having abstained are not counted in this vote.)
Member bodies voting: 9 negative votes out of 22 = 41 % (requirement <= 25%)
Sort of a sad day for the C++ community. Hopefully we can heal and move on from this in a productive manner. | 58 comments on LinkedIn
My understanding is that Bjarne has been going around trying to prevent contracts from going in. I think he’s right on this one (even though I otherwise largely disagree with him wrt profiles), but it’s very hard for me to tell whether blocking the standard with the national bodies is remotely worth it or proportional.
No clue what happens next! I assume the ideal would be that contracts get thrown out, then they redo the vote and the standard passes, and hopefully this happens relatively quickly? Worst case would be that there’ll be no C++26?
My understanding is that Bjarne has been going around trying to prevent contracts from going in. I think he’s right on this one (even though I otherwise largely disagree with him wrt profiles), but it’s very hard for me to tell whether blocking the standard with the national bodies is remotely worth it or proportional.
Oh wow, yes that seems quite severe. Looking more through some of these papers, I get some of the complaints for sure (mostly that relying on them for UB checks but then letting you turn them off is going to be a mess), but some of this wording seems like contracts are solely destructive. To be frank, the standards committees have been adding dysfunctional features for a long time, and sometimes they even later get fixed, so… I’m not sure if rounding up the international standards bodies here is a proportional action.
If Stroustrup is leading the fight against it, this does kinda seem more like a political fight, where some people who oppose it don’t really want to be overridden on anything (and, perhaps, some in support wishing for the opposite).
There are multiple papers and afaik talks on “why contracts are bad” , I’d look them up for references. Afaik a lot of stuff about the one definition rule, and “how do you selectively enable or disable contracts” etc. I’d look them up for references if you want to dive deeper.
That said, afaik there was “strong consensus” to get contracts in by the standard bodies.
I have not fully kept up on the current technical statusof the draft but Bjarne being actively involved (and against contracts) is afaik confirmed.
I would be very interested to watch those talks on why contracts are bad. Do you remember a name, the speaker, the conference or anything else which could be used to find them?
My understanding is that Bjarne has been going around trying to prevent contracts from going in. I think he’s right on this one (even though I otherwise largely disagree with him wrt profiles), but it’s very hard for me to tell whether blocking the standard with the national bodies is remotely worth it or proportional.
No clue what happens next! I assume the ideal would be that contracts get thrown out, then they redo the vote and the standard passes, and hopefully this happens relatively quickly? Worst case would be that there’ll be no C++26?
score 1 · canonical
Oh wow, yes that seems quite severe. Looking more through some of these papers, I get some of the complaints for sure (mostly that relying on them for UB checks but then letting you turn them off is going to be a mess), but some of this wording seems like contracts are solely destructive. To be frank, the standards committees have been adding dysfunctional features for a long time, and sometimes they even later get fixed, so… I’m not sure if rounding up the international standards bodies here is a proportional action.
If Stroustrup is leading the fight against it, this does kinda seem more like a political fight, where some people who oppose it don’t really want to be overridden on anything (and, perhaps, some in support wishing for the opposite).
score 1 · canonical
There are multiple papers and afaik talks on “why contracts are bad” , I’d look them up for references. Afaik a lot of stuff about the one definition rule, and “how do you selectively enable or disable contracts” etc. I’d look them up for references if you want to dive deeper.
That said, afaik there was “strong consensus” to get contracts in by the standard bodies.
I have not fully kept up on the current technical statusof the draft but Bjarne being actively involved (and against contracts) is afaik confirmed.
score 2 · canonical
I would be very interested to watch those talks on why contracts are bad. Do you remember a name, the speaker, the conference or anything else which could be used to find them?
score 2 · canonical
Oh, I was largely thinking of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzXu5KZGMJk.
score 1 · canonical