Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2025 20:56:00 -0700
> On Oct 29, 2025, at 9:40 AM, Jason McKesson via Std-Proposals <std-proposals_at_[hidden]> wrote:
>
> Is anyone spending any real time looking at the implementation of
> these hyper-low-level things? Or do the vast majority of C++ users
> just use the tools they're given?
>
The vast majority of C++ developers use what is higher level - to an extent trivial relocation is largely expected to be used to implement things like your core data structures and algorithms, obviously the STL, but also frameworks like Qt etc. Like many of the lower level traits and type operations in C++ they exist to make it possible to implement such code, which is then used by the majority of developers.
But this is true of any language: most developers are using their standard library (Java, .NET, Swift, rust all provide a pile of core types, just as C++ does), not implementing themselves.
There are developers who are doing things that require working at the level of these primitive operations, but they are the exception, not the norm.
WG21 has many representatives from that domain, just as it has (obviously) representatives of the compiler developers, the standard library developers, developers who are using C++ as a “typical” user is expected to - they write their code, and they use tools, APIs, etc from their libraries of choice, there are members who are focused specifically on education, etc.
To me there appears to be a reasonably broad coverage of the entire ecosystem, though obviously not uniformly represented. I’ve read and seen proposals presented that cover a wide range of domains, some high level, some low, some language, some library, some performance, some ease of use, some ergonomics, some teachability, even some safety ones :D
—Oliver
>
> Is anyone spending any real time looking at the implementation of
> these hyper-low-level things? Or do the vast majority of C++ users
> just use the tools they're given?
>
The vast majority of C++ developers use what is higher level - to an extent trivial relocation is largely expected to be used to implement things like your core data structures and algorithms, obviously the STL, but also frameworks like Qt etc. Like many of the lower level traits and type operations in C++ they exist to make it possible to implement such code, which is then used by the majority of developers.
But this is true of any language: most developers are using their standard library (Java, .NET, Swift, rust all provide a pile of core types, just as C++ does), not implementing themselves.
There are developers who are doing things that require working at the level of these primitive operations, but they are the exception, not the norm.
WG21 has many representatives from that domain, just as it has (obviously) representatives of the compiler developers, the standard library developers, developers who are using C++ as a “typical” user is expected to - they write their code, and they use tools, APIs, etc from their libraries of choice, there are members who are focused specifically on education, etc.
To me there appears to be a reasonably broad coverage of the entire ecosystem, though obviously not uniformly represented. I’ve read and seen proposals presented that cover a wide range of domains, some high level, some low, some language, some library, some performance, some ease of use, some ergonomics, some teachability, even some safety ones :D
—Oliver
Received on 2025-10-30 03:56:07