Robert Ramey wrote:
Given a library for which there exists a free reference implmentation in terms of legal C++ language syntax, what value is gained by adding it to some standard?
That which was mentioned: as part of the language standard, I, as an application programmer, can rely on the library being available and usable on all conformant implementations, without any setup for the build system to reference the library, without any special troubles in getting the library itself to compile, without having to wrestle any legal department to get it to work, without having to beg any college course administration to install it - in short, I can use it just as easily as I can use vector and string now. You may not think that is much added value. My experiences, both first- and second-hand, tell me otherwise.
If there value, is it worth the cost?
What, exactly, is the cost in the scenario you described? There is a freely available reference implementation, so the additional effort for the compiler company consists of including this implementation in the distribution. And doing some additional testing, perhaps, but if the existing implementation has a good test suite itself, that shouldn't be too much work. So yes, I think it is worth the cost. I want to say more, but my brain's kinda foggy. Sebastian