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You can think of C++17 as a new language which happens to be able to compile most C++14, C++11, and C++98 programs.

The trouble is, if every new version is _technically_ its own new language, and if you have to break compatibility a little, why not just break a lot and fix everything?

It's not like C++ was ever known for ABI stability anyway.

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The benefit is that ability to compile that old code, even if it takes some flags or marking it unsafe or whatever.

There is a lot of old code that will never be rewritten but is still valuable, and I believe we will waste a lot of time just language-shifting entire ecosystems as new languages come and go.

Look at python 2 to 3. There are still packages out there on python 2 that haven’t been migrated. And thats mostly the same language!

(Note that my view is colored somewhat because I am a scientific programmer)

For those that don't want to upgrade, why not use a pinned compiler? Everyone else does this with other languages, and overall I think the benefits outweigh the costs.

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