[tialaramex]

C++ 17's std::string_view is finally the table stakes bare minimum type, but notice that's a library feature so it's not actually part of the core language. std::string_view is approximately &[u8] that is, it's a non-owning reference to some bytes, it knows where the bytes are, and it knows how many of them. This means it's a fat pointer. In 1975 this was perhaps too expensive to be reasonable, it's 2023, we have enough registers, use a fat pointer and suck it up.

I would like more, indeed a lot more, but in a resolutely bit banging language I will put up with &[u8] and that's what std::string_view gives you in practice. The out-of-box string literal in C++ is unacceptable, as is std::string (an owning, growable string) used for read-only purposes. None of this stuff should have survived into C++ 11, and yet today you will still see it used.