#generic programming

[isomorphismes]

There are many legitimate reasons [to] learn template metaprogramming, like job security or job security … but if you want to learn template metaprogramming the most likely explanation is you are nuts. Practical uses? Not really. Yeah, if you are a boost developer … you can write neat stuff, but in your everyday job you are most likely never going to use them. [Unpretentious] programmers tend to like getting their jobs done.

Nicolás Brailovsky

[82unpluggd]

Generic Library Programming

While I sometimes lament forming explicit constraints on generic types, building shared libraries that use generic types is much easier in C# than C++.

Generics in C# are implemented dynamically (link time or later). Templates in C++ are implemented statically (compile time). Thus type constraints can be implicit in C++.

But, if you want to use a template type in your API (e.g. std::string) you need to [DLL] export the specialization(s). This is confusing in the best case, and seemingly impossible in others. It may be because nested classes cannot be forward declared. Or because I cannot figure out the correct specialization of all the helper classes...

After years of using both, I prefer the link-time approach. In particular when building a shared library.

[zombinedev]

Generic and efficient programming

[by-unknown-from-unknown]

C++ is a general purpose programming language with a bias towards systems programming that

is a better C.

supports data abstraction.

supports object-oriented programming.

supports generic programming

– Bjarne Stroustrup, inventor of C++ [Str09.2]

[randiftab-blog]

Implementation of Functional Languages: 15th International Workshop, IFL 2003, Edinburgh, UK, September 8-11, 2003. Revised Papers (Lecture Notes in Computer Science)

Implementation of Functional Languages: 15th International Workshop, IFL 2003, Edinburgh, UK, September 8-11, 2003. Revised Papers (Lecture Notes in Computer Science) This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-proceedings of the 15th International Workshop on the Implementation of Functional Languages, IFL 2003, held in Edinburgh, UK in September 2003. The 11 revised full papers presented were carefully selected during two rounds of reviewing and revision from 32 workshop presentations. The papers are organized in topical sections on language constructs and programming, static analysis and types, parallelism, and generic programming.