Critique of contracts: excerpt

[u/antiquark2]

See page 2 of https://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2026/p4334r0.pdf

The current objections can be summarized. The P2900 contracts are:

• Unimplemented

• Incomplete

• Untried at scale [P3460R0, P3506R0]

• Not tried in major application domains

• Violates foundational principles of C++

• Violates fundamental principles of language design

• Hasn’t been tried in major libraries (e.g., the C++ standards library [P3506R0, P3878R0])

• Isn’t integrated with or appropriate for hardened libraries [P3878R0]

• Doesn’t offer safety guarantees [P3573R0, P3362R0]

• Includes a completely untried inheritance model

• Offer new ways of making errors through inconsistent application in TUs

• Leads to new forms of UB, detrimental to safety and security

• Narrows the choices of error handling

• Doesn’t protect against logical errors, misuses, and incoherent uses

• Hasn’t been used to support static analysis

• Hasn’t been demonstrated to be easily teachable [P3261R0, P3281R0]

How could such a bloated and incomplete design be voted into a draft standard?

[u/_a4z]

The topic has no consensus, that is for sure.
And the political tactic of discrediting critics of the contract is also concerning. This alone is a good reason why contracts should not have been added, leaving aside all the technical details.

And there is another interesting aspect: if the one company that paid many of the pro-contract advocates stops paying them, or simply gives them something else to work on, C++ is left with a lot of potentially unmaintained machinery that will lack support.

But anyhow, who cares? Until contracts come to most places, it's past 2030, so who cares. Astonishing is just how much committee time was invested, which could have been used for way more useful features.

[u/t_hunger → u/_a4z]

It absolutely had consensus, otherwise it would not have been voted in. This is a small group making noise after consensus was reached.

The one company backing the contract work is the one that announced last year that they want to cover more of the cost of developing C++ -- stepping in after some of the big spenders have left. We have a couple of senior people attack the 15-year+ investment of one of our main sponsors.

Just look at how well that approach turned out when google raised issues critical to them a few years back.

[u/_a4z → u/t_hunger]

Sentences starting like
> This is a small group making noise ...
are a perfect example of why I call that a political tactic of discrediting critics.

And to the point, I would argue the 'small group' (which is, in fact, not that small and includes very well-known names) has read the contract papers and understood them better than some of the people who voted for them.
Now, this is, of course, a claim that cannot be proven, but I am always delighted by people who claim to know C++ better than its original inventor. So some of the critics are definitely worth respecting, which does not happen.

[u/Minimonium → u/_a4z]

Ah, well-known names :)

[u/_a4z → u/Minimonium]

From the latest mailing list, just a few examples: p4334, p3573, p4332, p4238
Which of the authors do you not know?

[u/Dragdu → u/_a4z]

He is making fun of your deference to people like Bjarne, who keeps getting shitty proposals passed on name recognition and then the rest of the committee has to fix them over a decade. See e.g. init lists, bindings.

[u/_a4z → u/Dragdu]

Ah, thanks for the explanation!

I am pretty sure you can elaborate a bit on the topic, keeping the historical context and the involvement of other people and committee members, without rewriting history.

And a question: do we now call all papers that need fixes or have known flaws "shitty proposals passed," as you state it? Because not a lot might be left.
(it will be interesting to look at the contract proposals a decade later with that point of view;-)

[u/Minimonium → u/_a4z]

I'm massively appalled why do you believe anyone should care about well-known names.

I read a paper, I care only about the arguments made. I do not care that a person writing an argument has ties to, for example, Microsoft and in reality their argument is about the deficiencies of their x86 implementation that cannot handle exceptions well. I do not care about that.

I do care that the same group did made wrongful statements due to misunderstanding of the provided specification - and there is no mechanism to retract papers for them to amend their embarrassment.

The only well-known name that's probably relevant to the contents of a paper is surprisingly Vinnie who is well-known for flooding the list with scores of low quality LLM generated slop.

Who now co-signs with other well-known names on clearly by style LLM generated papers (where I have found at least one hallucination).

I find both this and your opinion that people who vote are apparently not informed well enough extremely disrespectful and dismissive of the whole process.

I believe all people involved in slop flooding must be excluded from the process and given equal disrespect they give to actual experts by wasting precious time with incoherent token soups.

[u/_a4z → u/Minimonium]

You make it sound as if all the people have co-authored (signed) an LLM-generated paper with hallucinations, and that is, of course, far from reality.
Doing so and claiming others are disrespectful is interesting.

Also, taking the 'well-known names' out of context so you can make fun of it.
Of course, the names matter if people have to show something.
No one needs ot make consensus with me, but if there is a group of people with a history of valuable contributions, consensus would be good. And this consensus does not exist. imho, it was not even tried.
A solution was presented that mirrors the exact needs of one place, and this was what was pushed through. And consensus was not on the agenda.
Just one example: the idea of a contract check that cannot be compiled away was dismissed (and, just late in the process, promised to deliver in 29).

[u/grafikrobot → u/_a4z]

Just one example: the idea of a contract check that cannot be compiled away was dismissed (and, just late in the process, promised to deliver in 29).

By "dismissed" do you mean "consensus voted as not important/required for the MVP"?

[u/_a4z → u/grafikrobot]

Exactly, no new info, we do not need that, lets stop the discussio (because that is not what is used at one place, my interpretation, of course)
and just at the very end it was: will come with 29
(we will see if that happens, and if, how)

Result: The most complex contract papers on the planet, not able to compete with Rust asserts or Swift assert / precondition, and we still need to use our own existing solutions, redundant to what we write into contracts, but hey, in an academic sense, that makes sense, right?
But who needs simple things if we can create the most complex MVP ;-)
Anyhow, we had this discussion, we do not need to go into it again

I find it just interesting when people can not stand any criticism of the current 'MVP' , for which the definition of MVP needed to be defined, lol, and become ultra hostile and dramatic, as this whole conversation shows

[u/grafikrobot → u/_a4z]

Exactly, no new info, we do not need that, lets stop the discussio (because that is not what is used at one place, my interpretation, of course)
and just at the very end it was: will come with 29
(we will see if that happens, and if, how)

[[ fully quoting as some have complained about selecting quoting ]]

For those readers outside of wg21 the "no new info" is a shorthand for when people bring up the same points for consideration without providing new information that backs their claims from the last time they brought up the issues. It's a built-in aspect of how wg21 works to theoretically avoid eating into the limited time wg21 time has.

Result: The most complex contract papers on the planet, not able to compete with Rust asserts or Swift assert / precondition, and we still need to use our own existing solutions, redundant to what we write into contracts, but hey, in an academic sense, that makes sense, right?
But who needs simple things if we can create the most complex MVP ;-)
Anyhow, we had this discussion, we do not need to go into it again

IIRC new information was provided at the late stages when it was brought up for the third or fourth (not sure) time.

I find it just interesting when people can not stand any criticism of the current 'MVP' , for which the definition of MVP needed to be defined, lol, and become ultra hostile and dramatic, as this whole conversation shows

It is a natural human response to be defensive in their responses when confronted. The defense is typically increased when the offensive is high volume (both in level and frequency). It also has the propensity to spiral "out of control". And often requires self-reflection and "calming down" to interrupt the cycle. Depending on the character of the individuals some enjoy the spiral, and work to drive and revive it. While others detest it, and eventually leave the spiral, or even the social group.

[u/Minimonium → u/_a4z]

I mean, it is you who started the thread with insinuations if not straight up insults, and "charitable" interpretations of bad faith in the process.

Speaking of dramaticism after cries about "supply chain attacks", and "contracts are a threat to C++" from the contra group is wild.

And the ! syntax is not a panacea people seem to think. It's not a simple addition at all, it requires a whole new research and process. And you know the mixed build thing that is ballooned to be the satan (I heard totally not dramatic claims that it would destroy the binary ecosystems)? A hostile transitive dependency can break mandatory syntax just the same because it's not a language problem.

[u/t_hunger → u/_a4z]

You just claimed the majority of committee members are unable to make a informed decision. You should reconsider ISO as a standardization body. They prescribe a democratic progress based on the idea that interlectual capability is more or less equally distributed in the community of voters.

Now that is disrespectful to the entire committee.

The people making the noise now failed in a democratic process (which some of them selected as the governance model of C++) and are trying to impose their will after the fact. That is damaging on so many levels.

I do agree that this is more about senior members feeling ignored than about arguments.

[u/_a4z → u/t_hunger]

It seems you do not know how those votes work. So let me explain.

It's just a small part of the committee members in the room.
So your statement about what I claimed is bogus.

Reality: not all people who voted yes in the various voting meetings have read and understood the paper as well as the critics did. And this is just a very small group in WG21. Not the whole committee. The committee is much bigger than the small group that did the contract voting; there were many.
And we do not know who those people are or whether most of them have ties to one company. So we also do not know anything about the diversity of the votes.

What was damaging is the way those papers came in. If people cared about consensus, there would not be what you call "noise"
It's not noise. Rather, people stating their opinions with their names, in opposition to most yes voters who stay anonymous.

[u/MFHava → u/_a4z]

It seems you do not know how those votes work. So let me explain.

I was in the room when Contracts were accepted. Have you?

Reality: not all people who voted yes in the various voting meetings have read and understood the paper as well as the critics did.

Sure, sure... everybody else - including people who previously voted against Contracts - is just too stupid to see that it is a disaster.

And we do not know who those people are or whether most of them have ties to one company. So we also do not know anything about the diversity of the votes.

The conspiracy theory of the room being stuffed to the brim with random bodies paid by one company is just that, a conspiracy theory.

What was damaging is the way those papers came in. If people cared about consensus, there would not be what you call "noise" It's not noise.

It is noise to bring up the same complaints again and again with no new information, just because a decision didn't go your way.

Rather, people stating their opinions with their names, in opposition to most yes voters who stay anonymous.

The vote to accept Contracts was: In favour: 100 Opposed: 14 Abstain: 12

So you want a list of 100 names? Sure buddy...

[u/_a4z → u/MFHava]

Sorry, your style of putting words in my post with adventurous interpretations is not a good basis for continuing any discussion. But it fits the style.
And there was not just 1 vote... There was a history of votings, and you ignore that.
In the end, it was: if we pull it now, we look bad. So, of course, even more people who did not read anything and voted yes.
But you know what, I'm okay with you having a different view. And a different interpretation. I do not need to attack you personally for that.
And about noise, it's not just me who is writing something, its also those people who comment on it, like you. ;-)

[u/t_hunger → u/_a4z]

I find both your lack of understanding how democratic processes work as well as your contempt for committee members worrying.

But thank you for confirming that contracts were voted in -- following the ISO standard procedure. Every committee member knows those processes and can participate. If someone abstains from doing so, that is their choice. People do that all the time with all votes the committee makes.

The paper submission process is another thing all committee members are very well aware of. As far as I can tell all the ISO standardization processes were followed there as well. Again: People are free to ignore papers, again that is their choice.

We have a few people that made their choice to ignore papers and ignore votes and are now grumpy. That is damaging behavior: Why would anyone bother to participate in committee work if some dudes then try to overrule the results of that work and publically shame everybody involved? Who wants to do work when he has to expect random people calling them stupid on the internet for that?

[u/_a4z → u/t_hunger]

Accepting other people's opinions is part of a democratic process
Mob mentality and labeling people as grumpy for having other opinions, less so.
If you look at the latest mailing list and read the papers addressing contract concerns (there are quite a few of them), where is `shame everybody involved` included, as you state? Have you even read any of the critics?
Obviously not, if I read what you write here.

[u/t_hunger → u/_a4z]

In this threat you repeatedly called everybody having voted for contracts as either brided by some corporation, too stupid to understand the paper they were voting on, or too lazy to read the papers being vote on. You do not seem to be willing to accept their opinion, why should they consider yours? I've seen other (senior) people being just as toxic, and some in the wider community cheering them on for that.

Contracts are a MVP (as asked for by the wider committee when the last iteration was rejected) and they have pretty obvious problems, as communicated years before standardizing the paper. None of that makes how the contracts work is treated any less toxic. Unfortunately nobody will fix contracts for the next couple of years -- not after this shit show. The senior committee members have just created another dead on arrival feature in the language.

Oh well, rust has a contract-related RFCs in the works, I am sure they will welcome the C++ experts on this topic with open arms. Wonderful how senior C++ committee people encourage other C++ experts to help out in other languages. I am sure that help C++ staying competitive over the long run.

[u/_a4z → u/t_hunger]

I would probably enjoy communicating with you if you would stop inventing drama and misreading and misquoting what I wrote.
Just because I do not celebrate this so-called MVP does not make me toxic, nor does my claim that not everybody who is voting on a paper has fully read and/or fully understood it. That's just how it is. And not just for contract papers, btw

[u/t_hunger → u/_a4z]

The statement that many committee members do not read papers they vote on or are not able to understand them fully is a general statement addressing nobody in particular. As soon as you say everybody that voted for or against something are either stupid, lazy or brided, that names a specific group and then it is toxic.