[hypeatei]

> I think putting C++ in maintenance mode and keep it as a "legacy" language is the way to go

I agree but also understand this is absolutely wishful thinking. There is so much inertia and natural resistance to change that C++ will be around for the next century barring nuclear armageddon.

[actionfromafar]

I don't think even that would suffice. :)

[adgjlsfhk1]

Cobol's still around. Just because a language exists doesn't mean that we have to keep releasing updated specifications and compiler versions rather than moving all those resources to better languages.

[AnimalMuppet]

COBOL's most recent standard was released in 2023, which rather ruins your point.

[tialaramex]

I think the existence of COBOL-2023 actually suggests that it's not merely possible that in effect C++ 26 is the last C++ but that maybe C++ 17 was (in the same sense) already the last C++ and we just didn't know it.

After all doubtless COBOL's proponents did not regard COBOL-85 as the last COBOL - from their point of view COBOL-2002 was just a somewhat delayed further revision of the language that people had previously overlooked, surely now things were back on track. But in practice yeah, by the time of COBOL-2002 that's a dead language.

[pjmlp]

Fully agree, because for the use cases of being a safer C, and keeping stuff like LLVM and GCC running, that is already good enough.

From my point of view C++26 is going to be the last one that actually matters, because too many are looking forward to whatever reflection support it can provide, otherwise that would be C++23.

There is also the whole issue that past C++17, all compilers seem like a swiss cheese in language support for the two following language revisions.