On Mon, Jun 9, 2025 at 9:25 AM Frederick Virchanza Gotham via
Std-Proposals <std-proposals_at_[hidden]> wrote:
>
> Paper attached to this email in HTML format. Hasn't been published yet.
>
> Link to this version:
> http://virjacode.com/papers/polyhandle_unpublished000.htm
>
> Link to the latest version:
> http://virjacode.com/papers/polyhandle.htm

I find it interesting that this "proposal" spends over a dozen
paragraphs on the minor question of "how would this be implemented",
while the most important question of "is this actually useful" is hand
waved away with "There are many situations where it is useful". Like,
why would a reflection system care if a type-erased object is
polymorphic? Come to think of it, why would something using reflection
use a *type-erased pointer* at all?

I mean, even std::any's proposal
(https://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2013/n3804.html),
which doesn't have the best motivation section, provided a cursory
exploration of the design space in its problem domain. `any_view`
(https://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2024/p3411r0.html#motivation)
has a much better motivation section which clearly and effectively
lays out at least what the problem domain actually is, with code
examples of how awkward such things can be without the feature.

I find this interesting... but not surprising.