[andrepd]

>We don't just add things for the sake of adding them.

I hope you realise that the C++ design committee also doesn't add things for the sake of adding them. They aren't morons. Often there is a very real tradeoff in every decision, but generally the motivations seem to also be those two you mention.

[elteto]

I honestly disagree. When Bjarne writes a paper [0] saying how C++ is going the crumble under the weight of disparate and incoherent features then the language and its wider community has a problem.

To quote:

    The foundation begun in C++11 is not yet complete, and C++17 did little 
    to make our foundation more solid, regular, and complete. Instead, it added
    significant surface complexity and increased the number of features people
    need to learn. C++ could crumble under the weight of these – mostly not
    quite fully-baked – proposals. 

[0] http://www.stroustrup.com/P0977-remember-the-vasa.pdf

[steveklabnik]

I was hoping that my comments about C++ specifically would make that clear, but yes, I also very much agree that the committee doesn't do things just because. I have a very deep respect for their work.

[mrpippy]

> I hope you realise that the C++ design committee also doesn't add things for the sake of adding them.

There was a years-long effort to add a 2D graphics library to the C++ standard library.

[infogulch]

   This paper proposes a web_view facility for the C++ standard library.

http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2018/p110...

Yes, web view and standard library are being used in the same sentence. How on earth a web view might be considered for inclusion in a standard library is beyond me.

[steveklabnik]

In-context, this makes a bit more sense, though I'm not sure I'd vote for this proposal if I were on the committee. The introduction does a decent job of explaining the motivation; this is an alternate to the long-going discussion about putting 2D graphics in the standard.

Getting outraged at proposals, especially from the outside, doesn't make for a healthy process; not every proposal becomes accepted. Off-the-wall proposals can sometimes help explore a problem space with a new outlook. That doesn't mean that every single proposal is worth taking equally seriously, but Hal is a well-known name in this space, and has done a lot of good work.

(Incidentally, this kind of situation is why we're interested in adding stages to Rust's process; we want clarity around the maturity of a proposal. Some proposals are just for brainstorming. Some are more mature. It can be hard to tell sometimes from the outside which is which.)