Re:An Idiot's Guide to C++ Templates - Part 1
by pandaman on Tuesday April 23, 2013 @11:09AM
(#5595563)
I might have been just lucky but I have not yet seen a C++ programmer who passes a job interview yet is unable to comprehend the simple template syntax.
The opposition to templates that I have seen is not based on the ignorance of the basic template concepts. Quite the opposite - it's based on the partial knowledge of the advanced templates. Usually such people are cool with STL or STL-like home-brew collections but when they hear "metaprogramming" they immediately start having kittens :)
Essentially (class) templates are meta-functions over C++ types and templates themselves and the article describes only their basic application i.e. linear functions, over concrete types only and without any control structures. It's almost exactly as same as explaining Haskell without recursion and pattern matching.
The opposition to templates that I have seen is not based on the ignorance of the basic template concepts. Quite the opposite - it's based on the partial knowledge of the advanced templates. Usually such people are cool with STL or STL-like home-brew collections but when they hear "metaprogramming" they immediately start having kittens :)
Essentially (class) templates are meta-functions over C++ types and templates themselves and the article describes only their basic application i.e. linear functions, over concrete types only and without any control structures. It's almost exactly as same as explaining Haskell without recursion and pattern matching.