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0 pointsMauranKilom4y ago0 comments

> pretty much nobody uses the actual STL anymore: What we use is called the C++ Standard Library.

I won't deny your prior, but my prior is that people who complain about the use of the word "STL" to mean "C++ Standard Library" (and ignore that the latter is 10 times as many keystrokes) do so only to flaunt their knowledge, not because anyone actually experiences confusion nowadays.

Supporting evidence: https://github.com/microsoft/STL

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tialaramex4y ago

To me, the STL is specifically Stepanov's idea for how to do generic programming in C++ in the early 1990s, and so it makes sense to distinguish the STL from unrelated stuff that happens to be in the C++ Standard Library.

For example iostream isn't part of Stepanov's idea, Stroustrup created that bundle of craziness in the 1980s and today it's part of the Standard Library, but it was not part of STL which only came into existence in the 1990s (although Stepanov's ideas about generic programming are older).

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