Re: Adding optional<T&> find like method to associative containers in boost.

From: Ivan Matek (libbooze_at_[hidden])
Date: 2024-12-20 08:03:46

On Thu, Dec 19, 2024 at 9:47 PM Vinnie Falco <vinnie.falco_at_[hidden]> wrote:

>
> The needs and incentives of people who do standardization work are
> different from people who publish and maintain third party libraries.
>

Technically true, but does not imply they are wrong. Google had different
incentives(while they cared about WG21) than Meta, does not mean every
proposal that Google or Meta made was bad for other company.

> Changes proposed to the standard library have the luxury of not worrying
> about third party libraries. That is, when a wg21 apparatchik adds a member
> function to all associative containers, the amount of work is bounded as
> the number of containers in the standard library is a small constant. Of
> course, that approach is as short-sighted as is the assumption that highly
> active committee participants are experts.
>

This is (even putting aside wrong evaluation of highly skilled C++ experts)
wrong. It is not like C++ would ever adopt a large change without caring
about 3rd party libraries. I mean they might break certain 3rd party
libraries like spaceship did with Boost Operators
<https://github.com/boostorg/utility/issues/65> or C++26 might break
<https://github.com/boostorg/json/issues/1050>Boost.Json, but to claim they
do not worry about third party libraries is wrong.