Re: [boost] Report from Berlin C++ Standards Committee meeting

From: Jeff Garland (jeff_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-04-13 08:35:41

Andy Little wrote:

> C++'s main problem is that it doesnt have enough standard libraries to compete
> with (say) Java. Two obvious ones still not on the horizon are Unicode and GUI.
> ( I am going to try to do something about the GUI, though there must be much
> greater GUI experts than me that could do a better job).  A major reason given
> by the committee AFAICS (in GUI case) was that the committee doesnt have enough
> time to deal with it. 

Actually I believe the issue is that nobody has proposed a GUI library 
-- Bjarne has written many times about the desire to see a GUI library. 
But, its not really a surprise when you consider the huge amount of 
effort needed to do the design and development of such a proposal -- 
just to give it away.  From the academic side, there isn't much 
incentive to try and create a C++ GUI library.

Honestly, I like to look at this the other way around. C++ is the only 
language that has multiple cross-platform GUI libraries -- it's bad for 
training and consistency, but you're not confined to what a single 
commercial entity provides.

> Yet there seems to be adequate time to discuss the
> addition of more complexities to the language itself. A great language missing
> some essential standard libraries. Will that be C++ epitaph?

Personally, I'm worried that C++ has had a major slip due to the lack of 
libraries.  But I have to say that there's no way C++ library 
development can ever compete directly against commercial interests with 
serious monetary interest in language development (Sun/IBM/Oracle --> 
Java, Microsoft-->C#).  These interests can and do spend millions to 
advance their platforms. Since C++ is an open standard it can't be owned 
and hence it just isn't as attractive to these interests with agendas. 
And you can't blame developers -- they need to get their projects done, 
not write infrastructure libraries...

Jeff