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by forrestthewoods 680 days ago
We may just have to disagree on this one.

The fact that some things benefit from a spec does not mean that all do things do. Almost everything defined by the C++ committee since 2014 is awful. The specs, once published, are unable to evolve due to ABI.

The Rust standard library is soooooooo much better than C++’s. By leaps and bounds. And it continues to improve with time. C++ is far worse and far more stagnant. That’s lose/lose!

I don’t see how you could possibly claim that std::map and std::deque being a spec is a profound strength.

The fact that you celebrate non-spec implementations such as Abseil and Folly seem to me to be evidence supporting implementations over specs!

To be clear I’m talking about the standard library, not the core language syntax.
1 comments
kazinator 679 days ago
Computer programs that other computer programs use all require a detailed functional spec.

Entertainment software, not so much.

In between, you need varying amounts of spec.

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forrestthewoods 679 days ago
> Computer programs that other computer programs use all require a detailed functional spec.

And yet most programs that are used by other programs do not provide a detailed functional spec! How curious.

Most computer programs do not a formal, detailed, functional spec. They simply are what they are. Furthermore, the type of specs we are talking about are incomplete and purposefully leave a lot of room open to implementers to make different choices. Their choices are unspecified but fully relied upon.

Hyrum's Law: With a sufficient number of users of an API, it does not matter what you promise in the contract: all observable behaviors of your system will be depended on by somebody.

std::deque has an underdefined spec such that the MSVC implementation meets the spec but is utterly worthless. And it can't be fixed because that would break the ABI.

In this thread I'm specifically talking about the C++ standard library specification and implementations. Whether other software benefits from a detailed spec or not is outside the scope of this conversation. I maintain that the C++ standards committee should provide a std::deque implementation and not a spec. Thus far no one has even attempted to argue why it's better as a spec. Womp womp.

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