GSL VS core-js

Already showed you how to use ranges and such above, gsl::final_action is here

For span I would recommend the guideline support library - gsl::span

Not sure how things are at this point so you might want to look up with those keywords, but a few years back clang-tidy was one of the suggested tools, or enabling the core guidelines checker in visual studio if you're using that. Maybe using GSL or something similar as well.

When I want safety guarantees, I use the original and run-time checked gsl::span, rather than std::span. https://github.com/microsoft/GSL .

Another solution: use std::span (or some alternative implementations if the codebase doesn't use C++20).

If you ask me, the GSL [1] alone is a fairly radical departure from C++ that delivers a lot of safety. I don't know if it's gotten much popularity, though. Probably because it introduces a similar disruption like you might find from a brand new programming language.

[1] https://github.com/microsoft/GSL

> With Rust, though, one needs to learn entirely new ideas — things like lifetimes, ownership, and the borrow checker. These are not familiar concepts to most people working in other common languages ... Some of those “new” ideas are, of course, present in other languages — especially functional ones.

With C++, lifetime and ownership are just about as important but unfortunately no one's got your back. You can ignore lifetimes and ownership but you do so at your own peril. And the compiler won't tell you you're doing it wrong because the language wasn't designed for it to do so.

If you want a taste of rust's "mindset" (with respect to limitations imposed by some types) without jumping ship to a new language, try C++'s Guidelines Support Library [1]. It introduces some of the same benefits/friction as switching to rust but without a new language. Opting-in to some of these guidelines might be a gentler way to get some of the benefits of Rust. But it comes with a similarly higher bar.

[1] https://github.com/microsoft/GSL

It's also far more verbose than T* or T& (probably intentionally). If you really want a non-nullable pointer, gsl::not_null from the GSL is a good option. Writing your own version is also trivial, if you don't want to add a dependency.

I instead use the GSL and the Core Guidelines, where

This is surprisingly common. The other example off the top of my head, a single maintainer of a very popular project who had to temporarily abandon it due to lack of funds, is Denis Pushkarev (zloirock) and core.js (https://github.com/zloirock/core-js/blob/master/docs/2023-02...).

The majority of OSS projects have most of their contributions by one person (the project leader), and the vast majority of OSS contributors don't do it for their job. It seems nearly every single popular OSS project is like this (one unpaid, maybe sponsored, volunteer doing most of the work); it's not even worth listing projects and names, because you can just pick a couple projects you know and I bet at least one will be an example. Fortunately, most of these people seem to be well-off (probably in part due to the quality of programming jobs), but every once in a while there's someone who's not so fortunate. It should be more common to sponsor maintainers, especially if they are asking for donations provided they can prove that they really need the money (the world we live in, some people who have plenty fake issues to solicit donations, then others who genuinely need and deserve the money are scolded and left unfunded because of them).

Funny you say that, I was just thinking earlier today back to the core-js drama.

In short: the creator of a NPM package that is used by approximately everyone, everywhere, was facing a legal battle. He had been developing this package full time for years and did not have the cash on hand to hire a lawyer. He added a console log that ran on installing his package that said something like "If you're using core-js please consider donating". Queue an absolute shitstorm of people screaming at him in the github issues and him going to prison for around 10 months. Luckily he seems to be back on the grind nowadays, with a decently robust cross-platform slush fund to boot (~200k USD across Pateron, Open Collective, Bitcoin).

It can be a rough world out there for the folks building for the "focus, productivity and anti-distraction" platform.

https://github.com/zloirock/core-js

I think everyone here knows that, at some point, the site would start costing a lot of money and would need to be funded in some way. I would love for the Wikipedia donation model to work for a site like this but everything I find points to that not being the case. Reddit gold not covering server costs and open source devs not tied to a corporation struggling to continue working on their projects being two prime examples. If anyone has anything that can convince me to give it a try, please let me know and I will switch this to a non-profit.

Open source developers are not being paid. They published under licenses that allow zero cost and businesses won't pay.

If you want to write open source code for living, you have to find a business model that works. In this case, it is even under permissive license.

* code freeze - code is under open source license only a certain time after commit/release. Maybe add "support", aka you get security fixes in timely manner.

* open core - put some features behind commericial door.

* go ImageSharp way of split license. That one is fun, because MS deprecated/killed (throws exceptions on attempt to use) official image/font library and that was was intended replacement. Rather blatant offloading of costs.

This has been rehashed several time (core-js recently https://github.com/zloirock/core-js/blob/master/docs/2023-02...).

The gist of it is: Companies are not going to pay if they don't have to. That is the reality and it's not going to change.

This is one of the few examples. https://github.com/zloirock/core-js/blob/master/docs/2023-02-14-so-whats-next.md

Open source: It sounds pretty nice. Open to everyone... But it sucks in general. People really don't care to contribute to open-source. (e.g. here). It is a really good resource for development but for people who don't know anything about development, it is not important. There needs to be some financial income / support for good open-source.

there is https://github.com/zloirock/core-js but is more or less a 1 guy team and he is grossly under paid and well just read this https://github.com/zloirock/core-js/blob/master/docs/2023-02-14-so-whats-next.md im shocked he still works on it

Choice is good to a point but at some point it becomes crippling. It still haunts me on Rails. Is it yarn, is it brunch, is it npm, is it webpacker, is it esbuild, is it import maps... plus personally the pad-left debacle left a bad taste in my mouth and this little nugget about core-js was heartbreaking. For me it's hard to pick JS for anything other than what I absolutely must.

There's a real story behind that (but the software is core-js, not nginx)

npm WARN deprecated [email protected]: core-js@<3 is no longer maintained and not recommended for usage due to the number of issues. Please, upgrade your dependencies to the actual version of core-js@3. \> [email protected] postinstall /home/daniel/src/test/node_modules/core-js > node -e "try{require('./postinstall')}catch(e){}" Thank you for using core-js ( https://github.com/zloirock/core-js ) for polyfilling JavaScript standard library! The project needs your help! Please consider supporting of core-js on Open Collective or Patreon: > https://opencollective.com/core-js > https://www.patreon.com/zloirock Also, the author of core-js ( https://github.com/zloirock ) is looking for a good job -)