STL Overview: Issues

• STL does not handle polymorphic elements in containers (see the polymorphic class problem) because all containers are "direct".

• Allocators: Most compilers don't yet handle template parameters that are themselves templates.

• Hash tables are not yet part of the C++ standard. (There just wasn't time to get it into the standard.)

• Iterators are not "robust"; that is, it's possible to crash a program by deleting an element as its container is being traversed by an iterator.

• The "semi-formal" STL specification is less than desirable. A truly formal specification would be useful.

• STL can be difficult to understand due to the high degree of parameterization.

• Templates can be difficult to debug; debuggers will probably improve to accomodate them.

• STL does not compile on all compilers; compiler vendors aren't yet up to speed with templates.

• Present compilers often do not optimize the generated code; leads to "code blote".