Re:The Sad Truth About C++ Copy Elision
by ncmncm on Sunday April 04, 2021 @02:01PM
(#26691513)
> as well say academia's open access movement makes no sense as no one is pointing a gun at your head
The difference is that there is in fact no practical reason ever to buy a copy of ISO 14882. It takes contrived legal circumstances, such as a contract in which you are obliged to deliver someone the specific document published by ISO. In practice I have never encountered a real case, so this is a case of straining at gnats.
Recently, ISO relied on sales of Standards to fund its operations. Furthermore, allowing sale of inauthentic copies could endanger the public. But nobody benefits from offering a free download of the wrong thing, so perverse incentives have dissipated.
Anyone who chooses to spend the money can have the ISO document with its authoritative Title Page, and all of the satisfaction that Title Page brings them. They are fools only if they chose that over something else of actual value. Not everybody has a limited budget, or is spending their own money.
Cplusplus.com has a pattern of failing to fix errors it has been notified of, and of failing to keep up with current Standards. Use it if you like being misled. We might like to be able to exercise some authority to take down cplusplus.com, or force them to correct their falsehoods, but there is no such authority. The only real incentive they have to correct errors is to maximize ad revenue, but the marginal value of correctness is evidently limited.
The maintainers of cppreference are users of the Standard, and are inconvenienced by any misperceptions about what the Standard requires, so invest substantial effort to keep it in line, so far as tracking Defect Reports and resolutions.
The difference is that there is in fact no practical reason ever to buy a copy of ISO 14882. It takes contrived legal circumstances, such as a contract in which you are obliged to deliver someone the specific document published by ISO. In practice I have never encountered a real case, so this is a case of straining at gnats.
Recently, ISO relied on sales of Standards to fund its operations. Furthermore, allowing sale of inauthentic copies could endanger the public. But nobody benefits from offering a free download of the wrong thing, so perverse incentives have dissipated.
Anyone who chooses to spend the money can have the ISO document with its authoritative Title Page, and all of the satisfaction that Title Page brings them. They are fools only if they chose that over something else of actual value. Not everybody has a limited budget, or is spending their own money.
Cplusplus.com has a pattern of failing to fix errors it has been notified of, and of failing to keep up with current Standards. Use it if you like being misled. We might like to be able to exercise some authority to take down cplusplus.com, or force them to correct their falsehoods, but there is no such authority. The only real incentive they have to correct errors is to maximize ad revenue, but the marginal value of correctness is evidently limited.
The maintainers of cppreference are users of the Standard, and are inconvenienced by any misperceptions about what the Standard requires, so invest substantial effort to keep it in line, so far as tracking Defect Reports and resolutions.