[Development] Use of Standard Library containers in Qt source code

[Marc Mutz]

On Friday 01 July 2016 22:05:45 Thiago Macieira wrote:
>  I 
> don't and I don't have time or interest in learning it. You will always see
> me  write a for-loop to fill something rather than use std::fill.

This reminds of the party quip: "I was always bad at math in school <giggle>" 
:)

But seriously:

This sort of sentiment fosters mistakes such as looping over 
QVector::erase(it), turning a linear operation quadratic, and people trying to 
reimplement binary search, leading to unstable search results that depend on 
the size of the container. IOW: bugs.

Yes. I'm saying: Less STL use == more bugs.

We should instead foster the use of STL algorithms ("No raw loops"), not use 
ignorance of the greatest C++ library ever written as a reason not to use what 
it has to offer.

About APIs:

The STL has a great API. push_back() / back() vs. append() / last(), e.g. It 
just happens to be largely consistent with itself instead of with Qt. But 
camelCase is not intrinsically "better" than underscored_names, and I also 
fail to see why first() should be intrinsically superior to front().

And as an aside: please stop claiming that "the Qt API was there before the 
STL one".

Tell the world how the Qt containers looked when the STL was released. Go on. 
If you want Qtsy containers, go back _there_. The current Qt containers are 
more STLsy than Qtsy, and they're better for it.

Thanks,
Marc

-- 
Marc Mutz <marc.mutz at kdab.com> | Senior Software Engineer
KDAB (Deutschland) GmbH & Co.KG, a KDAB Group Company
Tel: +49-30-521325470
KDAB - Qt, C++ and OpenGL Experts