How do you use stl's functions like for_each?
- by thomas-gies
I started using stl containers because they came in very handy when I needed functionality of a list, set and map and had nothing else available in my programming environment. I did not care much about the ideas behind it. STL documentations were only interesting up to the point where it came to functions, etc. Then I skipped reading and just used the containers.
But yesterday, still being relaxed from my holidays, I just gave it a try and wanted to go a bit more the stl way. So I used the transform function (can I have a little bit of applause for me, thank you).
From an academic point of view it really looked interesting and it worked. But the thing that boroughs me is that if you intensify the use of those functions, you need 10ks of helper classes for mostly everything you want to do in your code. The hole logic of the program is sliced in tiny pieces. This slicing is not the result of god coding habits. It's just a technical need. Something, that makes my life probably harder not easier.
And I learned the hard way, that you should always choose the simplest approach that solves the problem at hand. And I can't see what, for example, the for_each function is doing for me that justifies the use of a helper class over several simple lines of code that sit inside a normal loop so that everybody can see what is going on.
I would like to know, what you are thinking about my concerns? Did you see it like I do when you started working this way and have changed your mind when you got used to it? Are there benefits that I overlooked? Or do you just ignore this stuff as I did (and will go an doing it, probably).
Thanks.
PS: I know that there is a real for_each loop in boost. But I ignore it here since it is just a convenient way for my usual loops with iterators I guess.
