yes, you can do a C++ program with functions only + integers and array of integers. technically that's C++. Very apt observation! I still guess that the main entities in your c++ program will be classes (not POD)
And I still maintain that most people treat class libraries (such as STL) as given and do not inspect how they are implemented and do not consider what constraints / alternatives do exist. One example: the std::dequeue is a dynamic array, and you can't quite tune the size of the inner array easily by means of template or instance parameters - no one cares. Also many people happily use the shared_ptr class and don't even know that it takes very expensive atomic operations to do the reference counting; I would have expected a template parameter that could determine if shared_ptr is meant for multithreaded use or not. Most people don't care and happily use the shared_ptr. Also there are no intrusive linked lists in STL (well, there are in boost)
I can go on and on about the STL (and other widely used libraries if you care) and I still suspect that they get away with these "issues" in a widely used library because people are used not to question library implementations and treat them as frigging black boxes.
And I still maintain that most people treat class libraries (such as STL) as given and do not inspect how they are implemented and do not consider what constraints / alternatives do exist. One example: the std::dequeue is a dynamic array, and you can't quite tune the size of the inner array easily by means of template or instance parameters - no one cares. Also many people happily use the shared_ptr class and don't even know that it takes very expensive atomic operations to do the reference counting; I would have expected a template parameter that could determine if shared_ptr is meant for multithreaded use or not. Most people don't care and happily use the shared_ptr. Also there are no intrusive linked lists in STL (well, there are in boost)
I can go on and on about the STL (and other widely used libraries if you care) and I still suspect that they get away with these "issues" in a widely used library because people are used not to question library implementations and treat them as frigging black boxes.