Robert Ramey wrote:
Edward Diener wrote:
Is that your argument ?
My argument is really a question:
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?
It ships with a C++ implementation which correctly works with it and all C++ programmers know that if they use that library in their code it must work correctly on any other conforming implementation. I think you are greatly underrating the ability of a C++ programmer moving from one C++ implementation to another, as I have from C++ Builder to VC++ in personal projects on which I am working, and knowing that the standard library usage in the code is guaranteed to work on both. Now let's assume there is no standard library. Then as a C++ programmers switches from one implementation to another, there is no guarantee that the code will compile on any given implementation. Taking 3rd party libraries, with Boost as the example, as good as it is if a compiler vendor does not support a Boost library because that compiler vendor has bugs in their implementation or does not support a C++ standard language feature which the particular library uses, then an attempt to compile code when going from a compiler vendor which does support a 3rd party library to one that does not support a 3rd party library will fail. Now let's suppose that 3rd party library is added as a C++ standard library. Immediately the compiler vendor which has the bugs or does not support a C++ standard language feature needed by that library, and wants to be compliant to the C++ standard library, needs to fix their problem. This to me is a good thing.