Herb Sutter's CppCon talk "Extending and Simplifying C++: Thoughts on Pattern Matching using `is` and `as`"

[Ali Çehreli]

On 11/1/21 3:45 AM, Bruce Carneal wrote:

 > It seems Sean Baxter's
 > "circle" C++ compiler is opening some eyes.

I haven't watched the video yet.

However, I had the privilege of having Sean Baxter as my only guest on 
one my D meetups. I had attended a C++ meetup where Sean introduced 
Circle. Basically, almost everything in Circle was already in D. 
Interestingly, he hadn't heard about D. So, he came to my meetup the 
next day. He may have found a couple of new things in D that Circle did 
not have.

 > A quick scan produced an older critique of circle wrt another C++
 > proposal:
 > http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2020/p2062r0.pdf.
 > Those authors seem to embrace crippling, IMO, scope restrictions that
 > circle does not.

Andrew Sutton happens to be one of the authors of an infamous paper:

   http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2013/n3613.pdf

That paper deprived C++ programmers of 'static if' for 8 years and 
counting. I am sure they will eventually come up with something better 
many years from now.

I see their behaviour as undervaluing engineering. I think D and Circle 
are great engineer tools but C++ is seeking some kind of perfection. For 
example, yes, 'static if' can be shown to have problems and shortcomings 
but it is an incredibly useful and succesful feature.

(Aside: There was another paper written years prior by known C++ 
personalities, proving "iterators are a better abstraction compared to 
ranges." (I can't find that paper anymore.) Ok, good proof! You go that 
way, and I will continue with my getting things done with ranges.)

Ali