I think it's good that a library can become sort-of "standard" without having to be part of the language standard library (where, as the python folk say, modules go to die). We're starting to see this come together in Scala-land - if you want a Monad typeclass you use the Scalaz one, if you want a HList you use the Shapeless one, and if you want HTTP you build on top of the spray-http abstractions (I'm particularly pleased that Play intends to port to run on top of Spray). That's something that you don't really get in C++, with the possible exception of boost; there are still multiple ways to do threading, multiple ways to do event-driven, all with their own conventions.
