Ah yes I forgot that. I remember Stroustrup explicitly stating that he avoided adding stuff like GUIs to the STL as people forget that C++ isn't just ran on desktops.

I use wxWidgets with a mix of STL (you can tell wxWidgets to use STL for its containers if you want) and all works well.

I had been happily using extra networking libraries and the ease of using libraries means I kind of forget that the STL doesn't have it - I just get into a habit of using the right library for the job, which is the way it should be I suppose.