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I was reading topics with the tag on StackOverflow which could independantly represent the planned or and happened to notice that one of the topics tagged was about a feature that just got accepted in the draft, so its version should be fixed.

I thought about changing the tag to . However, people may want to find results about or later versions when searching for . In such a case, should have I changed the tag to or should have I only added the tag while letting the other one be?

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    Why don't you talk to the folks in The Lounge, and see if you can get some consensus on how these tags should be handled? – user102937 Apr 23 '13 at 14:14
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    I have no idea what the correct policy would be. Anything that is "accepted" into C++14 is only provisionally accepted. Until the standard is finalized, everything in it is subject to change. (See for example how concepts were yanked out of C++11 even after they were mentioned all over the draft. I'd say that for now, C++1y should refer to "all changes scheduled to be standardized later in this decade". We can remap to C++14 or C++17 when the respective standards are finalized (which more or less mirrors how C++0x->C++11 was handled). – jalf Apr 23 '13 at 14:26
  • It doesn't really make sense to talk about C++14 until it actually exists (what if it slips and becomes C++15?) – jalf Apr 23 '13 at 14:27
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    @RobertHarvey directing an unsuspecting user to lounge<C++>? I thought you were above such cruelty – Kevin Apr 23 '13 at 14:46
  • Lounge<C++> is definitely NSFW. – Morwenn Jul 4 '13 at 9:11
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I have no idea what the correct policy would be. Anything that is "accepted" into C++14 is only provisionally accepted. Until the standard is finalized, everything in it is subject to change. (See for example how concepts were yanked out of C++11 even after they were mentioned all over the draft. I'd say that for now, C++1y should refer to "all changes scheduled to be standardized later in this decade". We can remap to C++14 or C++17 when the respective standards are finalized (which more or less mirrors how C++0x->C++11 was handled). – jalf 14 mins ago

I agree with jalf. We should proceed just like we did with c++0x: we kept that tag until the final draft (FDIS) was published, and only then did we start using c++11 (some people actually objected even after the FDIS, and wanted to wait until the final vote and official publication of the standard).

I think the one important thing here is that once C++14 is truly out, people searching within that tag don't want to find information that refers to behaviour that was eventually changed or cut out. That does not make the Internet better IMO. Not tagging them with c++14 until they actually cover C++14 seems important to me.

Given that, one can also argue that such questions are only applicable to a specific period of time and thus should be closed as too localized. But I don't want to go there; I suggest that anyone that wants to discuss the merits of that approach open a new question.

So, for now, I suggest the policy jalf described:

refers to all changes scheduled for standardization sometime this decade. We should use that tag since we are not discussing C++14, but merely some possible form of it. When C++14 comes out, we can finally discuss actual C++14 and not just some possible form of it, so should enter circulation. And so on for future versions.

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  • I took the liberty of removing the c++14 tag from the two questions where it existed and adding a notice to the c++14 tag wiki. – R. Martinho Fernandes Apr 23 '13 at 14:45
  • Well, I am okay with that policy, it indeed does make sense. I was really wondering since somebody opened a c++14-tagged question at first, but that answer seems quite clear and I like it :) – Morwenn Apr 23 '13 at 16:15
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Perhaps we should have a tag for all questions about proposed standards rather than final ones. This issue is going to keep comping up after C++14. Unless we want to have a for the lead-in to C++17, followed by a for C++20, and so forth.

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    There could actually be one problem: retagging c++0x questions to c++11 may have been easy, but retagging c++-experimental to the correct tag may involve reading again all the tagged questions. – Morwenn May 17 '13 at 12:26
  • @Morwenn: But we should be reading them again anyway, because not all c++0x questions should be tagged c++11. Only those questions which are about the final standard as written should apply. So a question asking about some rule that was removed during standardization should be left with c++0x. – Nicol Bolas May 17 '13 at 12:28
  • Wouldn't that imply breaking the tag synonym between c++0x and c++11? – Morwenn May 17 '13 at 12:30
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    @Morwenn: Yes. Just because something was done a certain way on the site doesn't mean it's the right way. – Nicol Bolas May 17 '13 at 12:31
  • Hum, the ideas are quite interesting. Hope we'll get opinions from more people about this and that we'll be able to define some "rule" to fix that problem :) – Morwenn May 17 '13 at 12:33
  • @Morwenn tag synonyms only apply to new uses of that tag. They are not retroactive. So we can keep the synonym (we don't need new C++0x questions, or do we?) and not retag questions that rely on details that changed. – R. Martinho Fernandes Jul 3 '13 at 14:09

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