"Noah Roberts" <n...@nowhere.com> wrote in message
news:49c268a6$0$29975$cc2e38e6@news.uslec.net...
The STL component of the standard library is actually the
best thing about it. That whole style of programming is
quite effective and represents some of the best in system
design. The STL is well worth studying as an example of
great style and design.
Was STL the first to introduce the concept of algorithms
working on containers via iterators? If so, then your last
statement, though a bit strong, has some merit (there are
other simpler ways that may be appropriate for a given
project and variations on the theme also). If it wasn't the
first to introduce that architecture, then I say the kudos
belongs somewhere else. The implementation, of course, is
too obfuscated and complex to be of "great style and design"
even if the algo-iterator-container was first used in STL
(which I doubt, but I can't remember the early stuff
anymore, say Roque-Wave pre-template version, or Borland
BIDS, e.g.).