When is the planned date for C++0x to be released into the wild?

Question

We've been waiting forever to see if it's going to become a full-fledged language, and yet there doesn't seem to be a release of the formal definition. Just committees and discussions and revising.

Does anyone know of a planned deadline for C++0x, or are we going to have to start calling it C++1x?

Answer 1

Well the committee is currently very busy working on the next revision - every meeting is prefaced by many papers, that are a good indicator of the effort that is going into the new standard: http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/

What is a little concerning (but reassuring in the sense that they will not rush publishing a standard just to assuage the public, yet do sense the urgency involved) is that Stroustrup just put out a paper saying that we need to take a second look at concepts and make sure that they are as simple as can be - and has proposed a reasonable solution. [Edit] For those who are interested, this paper is available at: http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2009/n2906.pdf.

C++0x will be a huge improvement upon C++ in many regards, and while I do not speak for the committee - my hope is that it will happen by late 2010.

[Edit] As underscored by one of the commenters, it is worth appreciating that there is significant concern amongst a few committee members that either the quality of the standard or the schedule (late 2010) will have to suffer if concepts are included: http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2009/n2893.pdf. But whether these concerns will be substantiated is worth being patient about - we will have more information about this once the committee concludes its meeting in Frankfurt this july (the post-meeting mailing can be expected in late-july, early august).

Personally, i sense that it would not be a huge loss to get the standard out without concepts (maintain the late 2010 schedule), and then add them as a TR - versus rushing them through even when there is palpable uneasiness amongst the more seasoned committee members (about concepts) - but I will defer to the committee here - while they have never claimed or been described as perfect, the majority of them are far more qualified to make these decisions than I am and deserve some of our confidence if history is any indicator - I would err on the side of trusting their instincts (over mine) assuming there was some reasonable consensus amongst them.

For some perspective, and so that one does not despair about these obstacles too much, compare this to what happened within the ecmascript community - Brendan Eich, the creator, had some very different design goals for the next revision of ecmascript (es5) from some of the other similarly talented wizards in the ecmascript community - they had multiple meetings and after much discussion (some of it heated ;) formulated a very very reasonable compromise followed by a frenzy of activity that has resulted in ecmascript 5 (all in the span of 1-2 years, including the conflict) which will be an excellent and pragmatic, yet much more conservative than Eich had initially proposed, revision of javascript. I have similar hopes for C++ (acknowledging that C++ is a much much much larger language - but then much more effort has been put in ;)

Answer 2

FTR: C++11 has been approved by ISO on 12 August 2011.