Re: Technical Excellence?

From: Vinnie Falco (vinnie.falco_at_[hidden])
Date: 2024-04-02 16:27:16

On Tue, Apr 2, 2024 at 8:58 AM Jeff Garland via Boost <boost_at_[hidden]>
wrote:

> I'll just note that BLAS is 'already done' in c++26
> ...
> Like special math functions, many applications won't need these tools, but
> if you do it's super handy not to have to wrap some other library or
> Fortran itself.
>

I think the bar for inclusion in the standard library needs to be higher
than "super handy." Everything added to the standard creates an added and
perpetually recurring cost, because subsequent features need to harmonise
with a growing set of already existing facilities.

In the past and now more recently I have heard "you can already get
networking as an external library." One could say the same for this BLAS.
Why does the C++ Standard now have BLAS and yet still cannot connect to the
Internet, with no capability to do so coming anytime soon?

Unlike BLAS, which has little to no second order effects (that is, new
libraries whose interfaces are built on this std facility) networking is
the opposite. C++ desperately needs a standard networking facility, as
users are currently deprived of the rich ecosystem of external, derivative
network libraries that are common in other languages.

Too often the justification for library-only features in the standard comes
down to one or both of:

1. this is "useful"
2. avoid the need for package managers

These discussions of convenience and utility never consider the opportunity
cost. That is, what we are sacrificing in order to have these things,
likely because a true cost-benefit analysis would make papers more
difficult to push through. There is never much in terms of quantitative
analysis. How many people would benefit, and compared to the alternative
(which is always simply to download and use a third party library).

Thanks