Oh yeah, C++ has been huge for decades. You pick a subset and program in that. The changes in C++11 had structural implications that took years to work through which is why it was late. The working name was C++0x because they expected to release it in '08 or maybe '09. http://www.stroustrup.com/C++11FAQ.html
> Oh yeah, C++ has been huge for decades. You pick a subset and program in that.
My impression is that the C++ standards committee sees the standard like a pile of papers on a professor's desk, where most programmers only need to understand what's currently visible on the top. And so they keep on adding papers to the top, they're getting the least-bad combo of innovation and backwards-compatibility.
My experience has been different. These days I mostly deal with codebases that are about 50% original C++ code, and 50% third-party code pulled in via CMake "super builds".
Even within the first 50% that's ostensibly under the control of a single organization, I find a large variety of C++ coding styles in effect. Continuing with the papers-on-desk metaphor, I generally have to deal with code that draws from the entire stack of papers.
