C++ & Templates was Re: Question about programming techniques

[Miles Egan <cullen best com>]

> are doing .... templates, references and constructors have made my c++
> experience a nightmare ... with C you have way more control of what happens
> and when ... yes .. that's harder to program/type but it's easier to debug
> that way

I suppose this really isn't the place for this discussion, but I just have
to say that all of my experiences with the STL have been extremely
positive.  I've gotten a lot of mileage out of the vector, list and queue
classes, and the map class is EXTREMELY handy.  Performance hasn't been an
issue at all and I haven't observed any serious code bloat ( this is with
Visual C++, unfortunately, maybe things are different with gcc ).

Constructors and references can be a little bit confusing, I'll agree, but
you're going to have to initialize your data sometime.  Why not let the
computer do it for you?  That's the kind of thing computers excel at.  It
may take a bit of work to get it right in the first place, but once you
do, it's all automatic.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled on-topic discussion...

Miles