Jeffrey Lee Hellrung, Jr. wrote:
... I haven't read the C++ proposal ...
http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2012/n3442.html
For one, it would provide a single implementation of a contiguous range of char, char const, unsigned char, unsigned char const, wchar_t, and wchar_t const.
It does.
But there's nothing inherently string-like about that design;
There are a number of very string-like things about the design.
Lastly, and I don't know how big a deal this is, but one could write more tailored range algorithms for contiguous_ranges of POD types (using std::memcpy or std::memset, for example, which may produce more optimal code (?) than std::copy or std::fill, resp.). So I can see a plausible advantage in having a single template class abstracting contiguous ranges.
To do this, you should accept an arbitrary Range and check a trait (is_contiguous), not hardcode contiguous_range<> (for instance, std::vector isn't contiguous_range<>, bit it is a contiguous range).