[Beowulf] C vs C++ challenge

[Mark Hahn]

> And here I argue that this is where C++'s strength becomes evident. STL is 
> _standard_ (hence its name). Thus, for a C++ programmer, Jakob's code is 
> comprehensible in one 15second long glimpse and this programmer can 

I'm less enthusiastic about STL for a couple reasons.  first, it's not always 
obvious whether it's being used correctly.  STL is pretty big - more in the 
way that Java is basically a huge library, incidentally glued together with a 
mediocre scripting language and what amounts to emacs bytecodes.

STL is probably a valuable toolkit for people who've invested in learning it.
frankly, I haven't, though I'm a C++ programmer.  I find that most of my
experimental coding happens in Perl (which is quite a lot handier than STL, I
think).  and for non-experimental code, I'm usually too concerned with space
or time efficiency to want to trust a big library like STL.

> > another try some day in the future when I have time and have found a
> > really good book on it.  
> 
> Lippman's "C++ Primer".

I loved this in its first edition (more than a few years ago).  in fact, I
must have raved about it a lot, since someone made off with my copy.  I
looked at a later edition in a bookstore and was un-enthralled, though.
perhaps I'm just surlier than I used to be, or perhaps the book changed.

I remember being very impressed with Coplien's "Advanced C++".  Stroustrup's
books are also worth reading, at least parts of.

regards, mark hahn.

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