Kodsnack 703 - The subset needs to fit you, with Harald Achitz

Fredrik chats to Harald Achitz about freelancing, C++ 26, and ten years of running the Swedencpp meetup. Harald discusses the various oddities of the Swedish consultant and software market, both before but especially in the current environment. Consultants don't cost what you expect them to when compared to employees, and a strange previous focus on headcount has not helped either.

We then talk about the standardization process for C++ and about new things in C++ 26. Harald discusses the issues of adding new things which are good in themselves, but perhaps don't fit into a bigger picture, take a lot of focus and energy which in turn means many other things do not get considered which may be smaller and more widely and immediately useful. Also: once something is in the standard library, it's eternal.

And there is still no real ecosystem around C++. Infrastructure is a hard thing. And Rust is out there. Finally, we talk about Harald's experience of running the Swedencpp meetup for ten years.