Containers

[deadalnix]

On Wednesday, 1 September 2021 at 20:48:10 UTC, Per Nordlöw wrote:
> On Wednesday, 1 September 2021 at 00:52:04 UTC, deadalnix wrote:
>> You seem to be confused. The C++11 standard prohibits 
>> std::string from using COW. Existing C++ implementations were 
>> using COW, and getting out of it was what was a disaster 
>> (notably, there were breaking ABI changes, which the C++ 
>> ecosystem is not well suited to handle).
>
> In what ways was it a disaster? Because most strings are small 
> enough to benefit from the small string optimization?

It was a disaster because gcc's standard lib used a COW string 
implementation, but had to change it when moving the C++11. 
Considering virutally everything uses string and that a lot of 
C++ software is distributed in binary format, and that the 
standard lib is often liked in live at launch time by the OS, you 
are faced with an ABI breakage nightmare.