🚀 go-pugleaf

On Fri, 15 Mar 1996, Rob Sartin wrote:

> In article <QQahcw08893.199603150939@relay2.UU.NET> you write:
> >What version of the STL source is going to be in the standard?
> >
> >I ask this since when I asked IBM whether C++/370 will compile the HP STL
> >source, I was told to go ahead and check it out myself.
> 
> Good advice. There is no standard yet and no guarantee that the
> STL *implementation* follows the draft.
> 
> No. You are making the mistake of assuming that because the STL
> interface is part of the standard that the copy of STL you happen
> to have must use an implementation that follows the standard. It
> is quite possible, indeed likely because the standard is a moving
> target and STL was developed using a small number of existing
> compilers, that the STL implementation does not follow the draft
> standard. The same is true of any particular implementation of
> any of the features required by the standard.
> 

This I can understand. But isn't the standard going to include an 
implementation of the STL? 

It seems to me that only specifing the interface can lead to unexpected 
problems. 

As far as I know other parts of the standard library are descirbed with 
the implementation. Or is the implementation I see in magazines just the 
authors fancy?

One more question. If the STL is part of the proposed standard, won't 
compiler vendors HAVE to supply some implemenation of it?

Ehud Lamm     mslamm@pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il
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