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Comment by badsectoracula | Hacker News Reader

Pretty much every C++ developer i've ever interacted with the last 25 years -informally- refers to the standard library as 'STL'.

I do not think anyone with even a small amount of C++ experience will be confused when 'STL' is referenced in the context of C++.

Of course it might be that every C++ developer i've interacted with doesn't really know the language very well. But considering the popular axiom that says something along the lines of 'people who claim they know C++ do not really know C++ while people who know C++ do not claim they know C++' what you wrote might actually be true :-P.

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Yeah but, it's one thing to informally refer to it as the STL; people will know what you're talking about. It's another to write an article about the standard library and say "The C++ standard library (also know as the STL)," which is a false statement and implies the author doesn't know what they're talking about. That's what the parent is referring to, I think. Personally no one I know has even informally referred to it as the STL since at least C++11, so it's a bit jarring to read.

If it's a thing people call it (and they do) then surely there's no better qualification for that being something it's also known as.

It’s not a thing that anyone I know who works professionally in the field calls it. Not for at least 10 years now. Some hobbyists do, though.

One of the main contributors to the C++ standard library refers to it that way. I can also confirm that many members of the C++ Committee refer to it that way as well.

https://old.reddit.com/r/cpp/comments/c90sxa/whats_the_diffe...

That was half a decade ago. I’d be curious if they still feel that way.

From ~10 days ago [0]:

> I'm pretty good at language lawyering code patterns that the STL uses, but I only know a tiny slice of modules.

From a different comment around the same time [1]:

> Life would be easier if we could do a hard migration from classic includes to named modules, but the STL can't do that.

> <snip>

> For MSVC's STL, we have the headers (happy fun land), std.ixx (has to be built by the user, but otherwise is simple), and the separately compiled code that goes into msvcp140.dll/libcpmt.lib (scary town, complicated, always built classically in the VS Build Lab, knows nothing about modules).

[0]: https://old.reddit.com/r/cpp/comments/1jb8acg/what_is_curren...

[1]: https://old.reddit.com/r/cpp/comments/1jb8acg/what_is_curren...

Well there you go. Just as you say, it is also known as the STL.

Well, a lot of people in general use words incorrectly when speaking informally, that doesn't make that usage correct. Irregardless, for all intensive purposes, I could care less how people say STL.

> that doesn't make that usage correct

Eventually it does. That's how language evolves. Prescriptivism is pointless pedantry.

I think you missed that the OP was demonstrating that statement false in the latter portion of their comment.

Yes, language evolves over long periods of time, but not all incorrect spelling and usage is language evolving in front of our eyes. Sometimes, it's just poor English knowledge.

Also, pedantry warning, the phrase is "intents and purposes", not "intensive purposes". Also "could care less" implies you do care, "couldn't care less" implies you don't.

Well that's his point. But in the context of this discussion, if he's writing a post about English idioms and expressions and writes like that, no one is going to take his opinion seriously.

I see what you did there, well played sir.

Saint Louie

* Well, a lot of people in general use words incorrectly *

immediately followed by “irregardless”, “intensive purposes”, and “I could care less” reads like a troll post

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