As I understand it modules support goes beyond just compilers - yes you need support there, but also in libraries (std library still is still not available as a module yet but apparently in progress) as well as build tools (CMake, Bazel, etc.).

People are complaining because it’s 2022 and support for modules is seemingly not there or incomplete in all these places, and modules are talked about in some C++ communities as if they’re a thing that is actually usable (for example Bjarne’s talk at Cppcon a few days ago).

> So they're complaining on the internet about not getting free stuff fast enough.

This is a very weird take.

Visual Studio isn't free for professional use. Xcode is free, but publishing for macOS/iOS is not. Both tools exists to serve platforms owned by the first and third largest companies in the world by market cap. Microsoft and Apple don't spend tens of millions of dollars a year on employee salaries for these tools out of the goodness of their heart.

In any case, the issue isn't with the toolchains. The issue is the C++ committee created a specification that has turned out to be problematic. Your next response may be to join the committee and fix it from the inside! Google tried that and rage quit to create Carbon. Sutter hasn't quit, but I think Carbon and Cppfront getting announced the same summer is not an accident.

Yeah, fair.

Very Online engineers complain about slow progress on free stuff for the open source toolchains. And they don't bother to light up ticketing systems on paid products. Microsoft and Apple don't spend as much on these things as you would expext. Because relevant management thinks we don't really care that much. But the common thread is that sitting back and expecting the world to come to you isn't reasonable.

Incidentally, Google is a big place. Some Googlers are still involved in the ISO committees. Certain Googlers, admittedly influential ones, lost patience and started betting their reputations that certain dramatic moves would be a better choice.

I personally don't think ISO is the presidency of C++. C++ culture focuses on language design way too much and engineering (good third party libraries, supporting implementation, empirical evidence, etc.) not nearly enough.

You’d be hard pushed to drive Penzance to Exeter in 1hr30, more like 2 hours really. And whilst the train is slow the journey is lovely along the Exe estuary and then along the coast. Having said that it is a bit silly that when going from London to Penzance most of the time is spent on the final third of the journey past Exeter.

Similar to another comment - it sounds like you’ve made good money, you’ve landed tech jobs several times, and you’ve got good feedback from your peers - that is successful, you should take some time to take pride in what you have achieved so far.

I think there’s 2 things for you to think about. Firstly, comparing yourself to everyone else you will always find people who have done better in some area than you, that’s no failure on your part, that is the reality that every person exists in. It’s hard sometimes to appreciate yourself, I certainly have bouts of this.

Secondly, when you’re working in an organisation, you’re not solely responsible for making some project succeed, shipping some feature or whatever it is. If there are processes making progress very difficult, that’s not your fault. It’s easy to internally create all this pressure on yourself to meet your own standards, but sometimes you’re thrown into a situation where external factors out of your control prevent you from meeting what you yourself deem acceptable performance - that’s not on you. You can raise the issues that are blocking you, you can suggest ideas for improvements, but in a company, most of the time you cannot fix these things alone. I have found that my stress increases when I don’t understand what it is that is preventing me from performing, and when I put it all on myself to fix. Identifying the issues and absolving myself of the responsibility to fix all of them have been the best things I’ve done for my work stress levels.

Thank you for writing this, it really resonated with me. I’m moving back to Cornwall with my family after a stint working on the London grind to focus on our careers - I think there’s been some benefit to us doing that but Cornwall has always been where we wanted to raise our kids, so now we’ve got one and it’s possible we decided now is the time to do it! I can’t wait to get back, it really does feel like a different life there.

I think for us getting to the point where all of our needs are covered by our income, it’s been a learning curve to really experience that it doesn’t suddenly make you feel happy or fulfilled. It’s an absolute privilege to not be worrying about day-to-day living costs now, but I find there’s always something else to be worrying about, and easy to find yourself feeling like there just isn’t enough time to do what you really want to and not feel stressed.

Hey, glad my ramblings were of some use! Sounds like you're making a move that makes sense. We loved London when we were there but for family I think there are better places...

I started work one day to find a message (with no prior context) from my manager saying “if you had to choose one other person on the team to keep working with, who would it be”. I panicked thinking there was about to be a slew of redundancies and messaged back saying I don’t feel comfortable answering that and that I was worried why I was be asked. Turns out it was just some random thought on her mind and thought I had over reacted. She never really seemed to understand it from my perspective.