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

[Idahosa E. <ida...@sw...>]

Well STL could never compete with your own custom library. Is it STL like?
Or does it just
implement the containers and algorithms in a way that is intuitive to you as
opposed to being
general purpose? If I was writing containers and algorithms for MY own
purpose then I would write
them much differently than if I was writing just a custom port of the STL.

-----Original Message-----
From: gam...@li...
[mailto:gam...@li...]On Behalf Of
Brian Hook
Sent: Monday, December 24, 2001 1:02 PM
To: gam...@li...
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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