On (22 Apr 97) Craig A McKay wrote to Jerry Coffin...
 JC> First of all, I'd point out
 JC> that the current draft of the C++ standard includes classes for
 JC> vectors, maps, etc.  Despite them being included with the
 JC> compiler, you can develop your own instead.
 CA> Well, I've used SUN's CC and GNU C++ and not encountered these:
 CA> probably just didn't know they were there.
You may not have them - Sun's compiler didn't have the features needed,
at least up through v 4.1.  I'm told that v 4.2 can handle most of
what's needed, but I haven't used it yet.
Some people have ported SGI's free implementation of STL to Gnu, but I
don't think it's included in the normal gcc distribution.  gcc used to
include some other collection classes of its own, but I'm not sure if
these are still supported or not.  gcc doesn't have all the features to
support the collection classes exactly as they're specified in the
standard either (no current compiler does, AFAIK), but it's got enough
to support the majority of them.
 CA> Well, you're spot on.  Java comes with *EVERYTHING*.  That's what I
 CA> meant, it's a complete contrast to C++.  Fine for cutting down
 CA> Software Development Lifecycles; not good for educating students.
 CA> When I first bought "Java in a Nutshell" I thought it was brilliant.
 CA> After having used it for a year, I have come to the conclusion that
 CA> it has a long way to go.  Corel's Java Office is amazing, but
 CA> painstakingly slow.
I can't argue much with that.  I've tried out Corel's Java Office as
well, and wasn't at all impressed either.  I've seen a _few_ applets
that looked sort of decent in Netscape, but the majority have been a
complete waste.
To some extent, this is a question of implementation though.  For
instance, Java mandates the use of a garbage collector.  As it happens,
most current implementations use garbage collectors that would have been
primitive 10 years ago, and are positively ancient anymore.  However,
there's nothing about Java itself that prevents using a modern garbage
collector, which should improve performance considerably.
 JC> As long as it's topical, youthful enthusiasm is welcome...
 CA> Ok boss, I'll remember.  :)  Have fun Jerry!
Thanks.  You have fun too, okay?
    Later,
    Jerry.
... The Universe is a figment of its own imagination.
--- PPoint 1.90
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