Frequently, whenever the topic of Reflection comes up, I see a lot of complains specifically about the new syntax being added to support Reflection in C++26. I’ve always thought of that as being largely driven by unfamiliarity — this syntax is new, unfamiliar, and thus bad. I thought I’d take a different tactic in this post: let’s take a problem that can only be solved with Reflection and compare what the solution would look like between:

Let’s take a problem that can only be solved with Reflection and compare what the solution would look like between:

  • the C++26 value-based model
  • the Reflection Technical Specification (TS)’s type-based model