Re: [boost] The Lonely Song of the MPL Maintainer -- or Boost support for antediluvian compiler and the future supprot of C++11

Subject: Re: [boost] The Lonely Song of the MPL Maintainer -- or Boost support for antediluvian compiler and the future supprot of C++11
From: Matthias Schabel (boost_at_[hidden])
Date: 2011-08-15 15:48:54

>> <radical>
>> Going further, shouldn't we start thinking at boost 2.0 which will
>> definitevely let c++03 die its peaceful death and start, on a voluntary
>> effort, move boost component toward C++11. I know we have a fully working
>> Fusion for 0x only. mpl, proto and other strategic infrastructure libraries
>> should benefit from that. Some are a trivial port like Boost.PP and all the
>> TR1 boost library that will just either disappear or forward the C++11
>> version.
>> </radical>
> 
> Joel, you know I'm in favor of this :) but you might want to hold off
> any serious effort until there are a reasonable number of compilers
> (say, 2?) supporting variadic templates, decltype and auto, and
> template aliases -- especially the last. You may find yourself
> committing designs today that may be dramatically improved with a
> little extra language support.

<more radical>
[With the proviso that I know nothing whatsoever about compiler design/implementation]

Has the Boost community ever thought about leveraging its experience to come up with a next-gen successor to C++
(the Boost programming language, maybe)? I started thinking about this during development of Boost.Units; while 
the power of C++ was evident, the process of implementation was dramatically more complex than the conceptual
specification. While there are a number of interesting languages in various stages of development (Chapel/X10/Fortress 
for HPC, D, etc...), none of them seem to be gaining much traction. It seems like the huge body of experience with the
C++ language and with library implementation issues could extremely beneficial in formulating an eventual inheritor
that preserves the good, eliminates the bad, and moves programming forward. It seems that one could use the 
ease of reimplementation of Boost libraries in the new language as a yardstick for success : libraries that
are hard to implement would suggest a language deficiency. Don't know if anyone has ever tried open source 
language development; it might turn out to be a disaster of design by committee or might turn out something really
interesting...
</more radical>

Matthias