Peter Dimov suggested the name 'optional', and was the first to point out
the need for aligned storage.
Douglas Gregor developed 'type_with_alignment', and later Eric Friedman coded
'aligned_storage', which are the core of the optional class implementation.
Andrei Alexandrescu and Brian Parker also worked with aligned storage techniques
and their work influenced the current implementation.
Gennadiy Rozental made extensive and important comments which shaped the
design.
Vesa Karvonen and Douglas Gregor made quite useful comparisons between optional,
variant and any; and made other relevant comments.
Douglas Gregor and Peter Dimov commented on comparisons and evaluation in
boolean contexts.
Eric Friedman helped understand the issues involved with aligned storage,
move/copy operations and exception safety.
Many others have participated with useful comments: Aleksey Gurotov, Kevlin
Henney, David Abrahams, and others I can't recall.
William Kempf carefully considered the originally proposed interface and
suggested the new interface which is currently used. He also started and
fueled the discussion about the analogy optional<>/smart pointer and
about relational operators.
Peter Dimov, Joel de Guzman, David Abrahams, Tanton Gibbs and Ian Hanson
focused on the relational semantics of optional (originally undefined); concluding
with the fact that the pointer-like interface doesn't make it a pointer so
it shall have deep relational operators.
Augustus Saunders also explored the different relational semantics between
optional<> and a pointer and developed the OptionalPointee concept
as an aid against potential conflicts on generic code.
Joel de Guzman noticed that optional<> can be seen as an API on top
of variant<T,nil_t>.
Dave Gomboc explained the meaning and usage of the Haskell analog to optional<>:
the Maybe type constructor (analogy originally pointed out by David Sankel).
Other comments were posted by Vincent Finn, Anthony Williams, Ed Brey, Rob
Stewart, and others.
Joel de Guzman made the case for the support of references and helped with
the proper semantics.
Mat Marcus shown the virtues of a value-oriented interface, influencing the
current design, and contributed the idea of "none".
