I haven't been following Kevin's column for some time. So when I got Artima's newsletter today, it came as a shock to me.
Buried in the list of new articles, in 4th place -- after such otiose articles as a discussion on Ruby's arguable responsible programming characteristics or the hundredth AIR advocate interview this week -- is the actual news of the year; Concepts have been dropped from C++0x. Artima's here and Kevin's here.
Now, I'll take the stance no one seems to want and ask what the hell have these folks been doing all these years. The last paper on the matter was published in January 2006. Since then, there has been no new developments. When last year, around August if memory serves me right, Stroustrup presented the new features to be discussed on this meeting exactly, he mentioned concepts and devoted quite a few paragraphs to it. Just didn't he know he's work was incomplete? Why not just say it then, instead of waiting until last month (pdf link)? I'll let go a little more air and say that since we hardly heard of Dos Reis since 2005 and Stroustrup was busy writting his new book (as if there weren't enough C++ for Beginners material) it's no wonder Concepts never really were. Or should I say, it was a nice concept?
