Why doesn't Irrlicht use STL?

agi_shi · Post by **agi_shi** » Sun Apr 06, 2008 10:43 pm

CuteAlien wrote:
agi_shi wrote: also @ CuteAlien:

I think you're both missing the point here. It doesn't matter whether a "quick look" at the source reveals the bug or not - there's too many places for "quick looks". The C++ standard library is already looked at, it's got all of this fixed for you, and it is guaranteed (in any full C++ compiler, of course, don't use VC++ 6 or something). It's really not about the "pride" of Irrlicht's own containers here, because, quite bluntly, they fall far behind the vigorously tested and used C++ STL; unfortunately, pride doesn't get you speed nor reliability.
We're not missing your point. If you read the thread you will notice that this was already mentioned, though maybe with a little friendlier wording. We're all well aware of this. And I don't think it's much about pride, it's maybe a little about giving up control - something which c++ programmers never like to do (why would they programme c++ otherwise?). And certainly about all the other arguments which got mentioned by now.

Any and all control one might want from a container is within the allocators - which the STL completely exposes via template'd allocators. Other "features" of containers must be put in the wrong place, containers do not need any more functionality (bad design).

Halifax · Post by **Halifax** » Mon Apr 07, 2008 9:17 pm

Well, this is the word from Niko in a message that he replied to, from me:

Hi,
just take a look here: http://www.irrlicht3d.org/pivot/entry.php?id=232

rogerborg · Post by **rogerborg** » Mon Apr 07, 2008 10:49 pm

Thanks. I think we can respectfully but comprehensively debunk most of that, except for "honestly, another reason for implementing the containers was because I had fun doing that", which stands on its own merits.

Saturn · Post by **Saturn** » Mon Apr 07, 2008 11:14 pm

Right. But that purpose is fulfilled, unless he sees it also as fun to maintain them.

And debunking of the other points already has been done in the comments to this blog post, with hybrid right at the front.

hybrid · Post by **hybrid** » Mon Apr 07, 2008 11:16 pm

No, I also saw my comment. But that was only due to class initialiser reordering and other stuff. We don't have any more warnings in containers currently

Halifax · Post by **Halifax** » Tue Apr 08, 2008 1:36 am

Oh, yeah, I believe those ideals are out the window to. I just figured I would post his full answer to my question about why the containers are kept in Irrlicht.

agi_shi · Post by **agi_shi** » Tue Apr 08, 2008 7:32 pm

[...] And they are really fast.

[...] and to let Irrlicht keep its performance equally everywhere

Irrlicht compiles with 7 (or even more) different compilers [...]

Any (good) programmer should be using either mingw/GCC or MSVC; getting something to compile across many (7?!) compilers (many of which are non-standard) is not a "good thing"

Ok, and honestly, another reason for implementing the containers was because I had fun doing that.

Trust me, I went through that phase, too. You should see all of my LinkedList and String and SmartPtr classes. Which I all scrapped at once when I realized std::list, std::string, and boost::shared_ptr were the professional versions

.

Halifax · Post by **Halifax** » Tue Apr 08, 2008 7:52 pm

agi_shi: That was a little bashish. I really don't think there was any need for that post...