[randallu]

What is this? Python? Why "standardize" Cairo? I can already use Cairo if I want to.

I'd rather they provided some standard template interfaces to all of the common 2D graphics algorithms (simple line clipping, tessellation, polygon clipping, bezier subdivision, etc) and not couple it to a classical scanline rasterizer CPU graphics library. But I don't think that even this belongs in the language standard.

There are a bunch of other opensource libraries they'd need to "standardize" if they want to draw text...

[zanny]

> Why "standardize" Cairo?

Because it means you can start making assumptions about available resources on platforms you target. If all you need is the included 2d api in the standard (which would be terse at best) then as soon as you can throw a compiler flag for, say, c++14, you can assume those primitives are there. You don't have to fight to either bundle a 3rd party library with your software, or pray to god the included version on the target system still has a version with the same abi, etc. You can just use it outright without hesitation because standard compliance means you have it at your disposal.

[cypher543]

While I agree that a 2D API doesn't sound like something that needs to be in the standard library, it sounds to me like they're just basing the API on Cairo's and not necessarily forcing everyone to use Cairo bindings. Individual standard library vendors would be free to implement that API any way they like, just like video card vendors have their own unique, yet consistent OpenGL implementations.