Proposals for a unification of member function and free function calling syntax have been discussed from the early years of C++ standardization. Glassborow (2004) proposed a Uniform Calling Syntax (UCS), allowing specially annotated free functions to be called with member function notation.<ref>{{cite web|title=N1585: Uniform Calling Syntax (Re-opening public interfaces)|author=Francis Glassborow|date=2 May 2004|url=http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2004/n1585.pdf|accessdate=17 December 2018}}</ref>
It has more recently been proposed (as of 2016) for addition to C++ by [[Bjarne Stroustrup]]<ref>{{cite web|title="UFCS proposal"|url=http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2014/n4174.pdf|format=PDF|website=Open-std.org|accessdate=1 October 2017}}</ref> and [[Herb Sutter]],<ref name="auto"/>, to reduce the ambiguous decision between writing [[free function (c++)|free function]]s and member functions, to simplify the writing of [[generic programming|templated code]]. Many programmers are tempted to write member functions to get the benefits of the member function syntax (e.g. "[[dot-autocomplete]]" to list [[member function]]s);<ref>{{cite web|title=using intellisense|url=https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hcw1s69b.aspx|website=Msdn.microsoft.com|accessdate=1 October 2017}}</ref> however, this leads to excessive [[Coupling (computer programming)|coupling]] between [[Class (computer programming)|classes]].<ref>{{cite web|title="How Non-Member Functions improve encapsulation|url=http://www.drdobbs.com/cpp/how-non-member-functions-improve-encapsu/184401197|website=Drdobbs.com|accessdate=1 October 2017}}</ref>
