Re: Programming on Linux vs Windows
On 2008-06-17 21:48, Rune Allnor wrote:
On 17 Jun, 00:58, Francis Glassborow
<francis.glassbo...@btinternet.com> wrote:
A TR is a kind of testbed and things in it are subject to
change. In the case of TR1 the mathematical functions section has been
moved into its own IS (because we do not want to compel every
implementer to provide them, but some sections of the C++ community
require them to be covered by and International Standard) and other
things have been changed or improved before adding to the Working Draft
for the next C++ Standard.
Is there an open document somewhere which describes how
this process works? I see references to TRs and future
standards all over the place, but what does all this
mean from a day-to-day programming point of view?
Not much, when the final version of the standard is released it is up to
the vendors to provide an implementation. In the beginning the quality
and availability of C++09 implementations will vary quite much but as
time goes things will stabilise and the new stuff will be just another
part of the language.
Of course it will take some time to learn the new stuff and even more
time until best practices evolve for some of it but from a programmers
point of view it is just a new library (and some changes to the old) and
some new features in the language.
It would be interesting to see answers to questions
like
- When can one expect new libraries to be available?
The new standard will hopefully be out 2009, you will probably be able
to find early "draft" implementations in the same year but you will
probably not find implementations of the real stuff until 2010. Of
course it depends on who your vendor is, if you use MS VS you will
probably have to wait till the next VS release, gcc might be a bit
quicker as they release more when they feel like it.
- What will the status (test/debug/standard) of such
libraries be, and how will this status evolve?
You have to separate the interface (and some requirements on
functionality) from the vendor's implementation. The interfaces will
probably be quite good (but never perfect), the implementations can vary
with improvements in stability and performance over time.
- When will it be safe to assume that a library
interface has been 'fixed' and can be used in
production code?
The interfaces will be quite firmly fixed when the standard is released
(it is not easy to make changes to an ISO standard) so you can probably
start using the interfaces from day one and continue to do so for 10
years of more. Of course errors will be found and fixed but if you
compare the interfaces from the 1998 and 2003 standards I doubt you'll
see much difference.
--
Erik Wikstr?m
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