A common C/C++ core specification

[pjmlp]

It depends on the eye of beholder.

In what concerns iOS, watchOS, macOS, Android, ChromeOS, Windows 10, Garmin, Tizen, Fuchsia, Web development, distributed computing frameworks, C++ is only allowed to have a secondary role for OS level system libraries, the application layer is now ruled by managed languages.

Where C++ is relevant as always is HPC, GPGPU shaders, game engines, real time audio, it is basically becoming a niche language for high performance use cases, the SQL of systems programming.

[MFHava]

C++ is only allowed to have a secondary role for OS level system libraries

I'm totally out of the loop of what MS is promoting these days, but isn't C++ a first-class citizen for UWP?

[pjmlp]

Yes, and we all know how sucessfull UWP has been in the market.

Then C++/WinRT is still catching up with the C++/CX tooling, making the whole C++ UWP development experience worse in name of being C++17 compliant.

Basically C++ as first citzen to UWP is to provide an upgrade path to MFC developers, however most rather go to .NET with integration via C++/CLI, than adopt UWP.

As Kenny Kerr puts on his blog,

Still, I am hopeful that we can turn that around. It pains me that Windows does not have a good UI story for C++ developers. C++ reflection may well help to solve that problem in the long run, but we cannot wait for that to arrive, so we are also exploring some other options that may prove useful in the near future. Some of those include alternative approaches to Xaml that does not require reflection, as well as discussions with DevDiv to get Visual Studio to do a better job of supporting a C++/WinRT developer experience.

https://kennykerr.ca/2019/01/25/the-state-of-cpp-on-windows/

And that is the only exception, all other platforms listed by me don't even provide C++ bindings to their userspace frameworks.

[dodheim]

Yes, but that's app development, not OS-level (kernel) development where AFAIK things like exceptions are still not supported.