First screen, captured 5 days ago. Open the video.

When a language's creator and its owners strongly disagree [pdf]

What HN thinks

A committee vote on contracts turns into a referendum on em-dashes, BDFLs, and whether C++ should be put out to pasture.

Stroustrup's contract objections are sensible
Many found the objections reasonable and see little benefit in contracts over plain asserts, with broader fatigue about half-baked features like modules.
C++ is too complex or dying
Newcomers and veterans alike complain about many ways to do everything, safety problems, and argue Rust or LLM-assisted rewrites will displace it; others counter that complexity is inherent and other languages have baggage too.
Who really owns a language
Debate over whether ISO/WG21 'owns' C++ versus compilers and users, and whether a BDFL model beats design by committee.

Consensus: No firm consensus, though most commenters were sceptical that contracts as proposed justify their complexity in C++26.

Recommended in the comments

Rust (other): Suggested as the safer successor to C++ for new or ported code.
Swift (other): Praised as a C++-like language with the historical cruft removed.

Summarised by Claude from the comment thread 4 days ago.

Points: 136
Comments: 131
Best rank: #2
Posted: 2026-11-08 by acossta
Category: Programming

cpp cpp26 wg21 iso-standardization contracts bjarne-stroustrup herb-sutter

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