Final by default?

[Sean Kelly]

On Thursday, 13 March 2014 at 21:50:10 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
> On 3/13/2014 11:41 AM, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>> 2. There's the danger of getting into a design-by-committee 
>> rut.
>
> Back in the early days of the C++ Standards committee, I recall 
> some members negotiating in effect "vote for my proposal and 
> I'll vote for yours". I don't see that as a great way to design 
> a language.
>
> Democratic committee processes also involve long, and I mean 
> loooong, timespans for making decisions. Like 13 years from 
> C++98 to C++11.

To be pedantic, there was a TC released in 2003.  And many of the
C++11 features were available years ahead of time from all the
usual library sources.  But I agree that the ISO process isn't
fast.  In fact, I think that's an actual goal, as the industries
that depend on these standards are slow-moving as well.