Re: Design of STL was RE: [GD-General] Eiffel

[Tom S. <tsp...@mo...>]

> But now that I've written my own, I find I'm much happier
> with own implementation instead of using STL's.

    This may work well in smaller environments, but when you have to work in
larger teams having a standard that is well documented is absolutely
necessary.  Do you want to teach new hires your custom collections classes
or do you simply look for programmers with experience with STL?  To me it's
about being more productive in order to make a better games... not building
technology because you don't like underscores. =)  Not that it is the case
here, but it's an all too common thing.  Tom

----- Original Message -----
From: "Brian Hook" <bri...@py...>
To: <gam...@li...>
Sent: Monday, December 24, 2001 1:01 PM
Subject: Design of STL was RE: [GD-General] Eiffel


> > Behalf Of Kent Quirk
> >
> > I *really* have to disagree here.
> >
> > The DESIGN of the STL is absolutely gorgeous.
>
> I didn't mean to comment on STL's design, only the practical
> implications involved with its implementation (both in terms of choice
> of language and the actual implementations such as Microsoft's).
>
> A paper on genericity in C++ vs. Eiffel:
>
> http://www.elj.com/eiffel/ij/templates/
>
> > variable names, etc. But I have found that idiomatic use of
> > the STL drastically reduces both the amount of code I have to
> > write and the number of errors I make in that code.
>
> Compared to writing that code yourself, or not using those data
> structures at all, or what?
>
> When I started using STL I decided I liked it simply because all too
> often when I was in a hurry I would do stupid things like linear
> searches instead of taking the time to dig up a proper class that did
> binary searches or whatever.  So I thought STL was cool simply because
> it forced me to use appropriate algorithms when I was too lazy to
> implement them ("I'll fix it later").  But now that I've written my own,
> I find I'm much happier with own implementation instead of using STL's.
>
> > One of my frustrations with Java is the lack of ability to
> > write anything like the STL in it. It's a frustration because
> > I otherwise like it a great deal.
>
> I'm coming back around to liking Java.  Since it lacks true generic
> programming, it uses a SmallTalk/Obj-C style of container where casting
> is required.  However, this is not fundamentally a bad thing unless
> you're religious about static type checking (in which case, Eiffel seems
> to be a better philosophical match than C++).  I happen to like Obj-C
> and Java's introspection mechanisms since you can code a lot of very
> powerful stuff without forcing it all to be generated at compile time.
> You can also change your generic code WITHOUT FORCING A RECOMPILE OF ALL
> CLIENTS.  This is just, well, huge, in my book.  I don't want to export
> my code to everyone that is using my class libraries; and I sure don't
> want them to have to recompile just because some implementation detail
> has changed.
>
> Brian
>
>
>
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