To remove the #pragma once precedence, the __COUNTER__ proposal could instead also standardize #pragma once and other similar quasi-standards.
 

-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: Arthur O‘Dwyer via Std-Proposals <std-proposals@lists.isocpp.org>
Gesendet: Do 22.08.2024 17:19

 

I'm ambivalent on the proposal. It is obviously standardizing useful existing practice. But the very ubiquity of __COUNTER__ means that its standardization won't help anyone.

One way to (politically) motivate an existing-practice proposal is to go find some implementation divergence, and claim that your proposal would resolve that divergence, thus improving the user's life. But if there is no divergence — or if your proposal fails to resolve what divergence exists — then you haven't got a case.

An example of this scenario is `#pragma once`. Literally every vendor supports `#pragma once`; but it's never been standardized, because the cost of standardization is high and the benefit would be literally zero: nobody is prevented from using `#pragma once` just because it's non-standard.

The cost of standardizing `__COUNTER__` is much lower (because the spec is very simple), but the benefit is still literally zero.