> I think putting C++ in maintenance mode and keep it as a "legacy" language is the way to go

I agree but also understand this is absolutely wishful thinking. There is so much inertia and natural resistance to change that C++ will be around for the next century barring nuclear armageddon.

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actionfromafar 7 months ago | parent | next [-]

I don't think even that would suffice. :)

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adgjlsfhk1 7 months ago | parent | prev [-]

Cobol's still around. Just because a language exists doesn't mean that we have to keep releasing updated specifications and compiler versions rather than moving all those resources to better languages.

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AnimalMuppet 7 months ago | parent [-]

COBOL's most recent standard was released in 2023, which rather ruins your point.

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tialaramex 7 months ago | parent [-]

I think the existence of COBOL-2023 actually suggests that it's not merely possible that in effect C++ 26 is the last C++ but that maybe C++ 17 was (in the same sense) already the last C++ and we just didn't know it.

After all doubtless COBOL's proponents did not regard COBOL-85 as the last COBOL - from their point of view COBOL-2002 was just a somewhat delayed further revision of the language that people had previously overlooked, surely now things were back on track. But in practice yeah, by the time of COBOL-2002 that's a dead language.

	▲	pjmlp 7 months ago \| parent [-]
		Fully agree, because for the use cases of being a safer C, and keeping stuff like LLVM and GCC running, that is already good enough. From my point of view C++26 is going to be the last one that actually matters, because too many are looking forward to whatever reflection support it can provide, otherwise that would be C++23. There is also the whole issue that past C++17, all compilers seem like a swiss cheese in language support for the two following language revisions.