C++ is a nice language for the niche it fills: Something that allows some basic OO while still offering the cutting-edge runtime performance that other compiled languages have.
With increasing hardware possibilities and the focus moving from runtime performance to developer performance, this niche gets smaller by the day though. For most business application, a 10% runtime performance increase has zero value, while a 10% developer performance increase is worth, well, 10% of a developer's salary.

There are situations though where C++ is the only possible choice of language, while GC would still be useful. I don't see how (optional) GC in C++ would hurt anyone - if you don't want it, don't use it; if you do, a standardized way of building GC into the syntax and the compiler just makes sense.

BTW, said it before (in that other thread): Microsoft's idea of C++ already includes language-integrated GC, mainly because .NET needs it.

Yeah, they will not change the face of the world. Nothing enough big to be interesting.
One day people will realize that they are STILL limited by the amount of instruction their processor have. No matter the language, no matter the complexity, it's always reduced to these few amount of instruction.

That's my opinion.

Ha, also, it makes the code ever more unreadable.

EDIT: While you are at GC thing, don't forget to collect yourself.

No I'm not full of shit.

Let say GC becomes part of the standard.
Next time someone wants support for featureX
Next time someone wants support for featureY
Next time someone wants support for featureZ

Hell, while we are at it, lets make the whole .NET library C++ standard.

Look what happened to HTML.

We dig it BAF, you like C#

None, just his soul.

Due to their nature, I don't think we can compare C++ against C# or Java. However, comparisons between C++ against D or C makes more sense.

I think that you are becoming unreasonable, ixilom. You seem to be implying that anyone who ever makes a memory management mistake should basically be sacked from any complex programming job. Can you honestly say that you never make mistakes in your memory management?

If it wasn't for those 'inadequate' programmers, it is likely that we wouldn't have those buggy programs at all. Including FF and Explorer, but also most of our favourite games and other important software. As axilmar has said, these problems are quite common across a large range of projects. To say that the people who made the mistakes should not have been involved in those projects is - in my opinion - a very narrow viewpoint.

If you want to argue against including GC in the C++ standard, you really should take a different angle, like "no more bloat" or something like that.

I would like to give another perspective:

Most of programmers are people who choose programming as a way to pays his bills, and they don't have any interest in being a guru. Maybe nerds think this is because they are stupid, but those guys maybe need to take care of other things, like family, etc...

And from the company side, if you have the tools to let those guys work without making disasters. As long the results satisfy your desired quality, contracting better programmers to do the same job, is just an absurd way of losing money.

The conservative attitude is fine, the C++ mafia is not interested in the previous scenario, so other technologies like .NET will fill that (big) space.