Furthermore, I'm not just talking about the existence of a standard, but the complexity of the standard (C++is v. big), and also how much that standard restricts, and hence results in conformal, predictable code.
You mean C++03, C++11, C++14, C++17? Or something else?
If you mean those, I fail to see the problem. The language isn't dead, so it's not static, and it evolves over time. Publishing a new standard every few years is the only way to keep all compilers aligned, rather than each going off in its own "with extra features!" direction.
Yes, those. The differences between standards aren't trivial, and often the older standards have to be maintained.
The standard already has lots of features, including a turing-complete sub-language.
It is difficult to write code to standard (nothing that works, but is undefined either), that is safe, no segfaults, memory issue, secure, and all within a practical budget/timeline.
Just being able to reason about the code more easily helps, or make strong assumptions (e.g. about safety).
You're reducing the argument here. qualitative arguments (true/false) over quantitative (to what degree).
Your argument is similar to: "Hitler is bad, but no one if perfect" - does that mean than anyone not perfect is equivalent to Hitler?
Moving on; to focus on python it's not difficult to know the handful of changes between, say, python 2.5 and 2.7, nor to understand them. py3 is different, and the fork caused a lot of controversy, there is still resistance to py3. There is a python-2-to-python-3 tool (could any such thing practically exist between C++ versions?), but it's not perfect.
A language like Java almost suffers from trying to remain backwards compatible, yes a) the feature is nonetheless appreciated, and java is heavily used and praised in 'enterprise' b) Java tends to make breaking changes rarely, and only when necessary - can the changes between C++ specs be described the same?
From the point of view of the ISO, my understanding is that they consider it to only have a single standard, with newer versions completely subsuming the existing one. I would actually argue that if C++ has a standards problem, it's that major revisions (1998, 2011, 2017, etc) are not treated as being distinct standards.
Furthermore, I'm not just talking about the existence of a standard, but the complexity of the standard (C++is v. big), and also how much that standard restricts, and hence results in conformal, predictable code.