Re: C++... is it dying?
Juha Nieminen <nospam@thanks.invalid> wrote:
puzzlecracker wrote:
The only practical use of STL to this day is to code solutions in
programming challangies (TopCoder, ACM, etc).
Does that mean eg. you don't use STL for real application code? Are
you saying the STL is useless in practice?
If the answer is affirmative, I really don't get it. I use STL *a lot*
when I code as a hobby and as my payjob. It has saved me countless hours
of development and debugging time because most of the time I don't have
to implement my own data containers nor algorithms, nor do I have to
thoroughly test them for bugs.
If I had to code in C, which has no data containers nor algorithms
whatsoever (besides the horrible qsort), that would be a real nightmare.
Nonsense. You would do the same thing every programming house did before
the STL came along, develop your own set of containers and algorithms
and use them. Then when someone asked why you don't switch from what you
know to this "new improved" library, you would look at all the code you
already have written, all the evidence that your containers work and
work well, and ask "why bother?"
A lot of C++ engines, frameworks and libraries were developed long
before STL burst on the scene and they solved all the problems STL
solves. Why should they dump all that hard work, that works?
Programming languages have a nasty habit of starting life clean and well
designed but with a few quirks and lacking in some way, then they grow
to become bloated beasts that have way more than they need and even more
quirks because of the requirement that they are backwards compatible.
Eventually they die under their own weight. Either that, or the language
stagnates and eventually becomes minor niche.
C++ seems to be in the unenviable position of officially bloating while
practically stagnating.