This has been submitted to news.answers and is pending reply.

Of special note:  A major complaint about libraries that programmers
have is that you don't get the source.  Well, with STL, you get the
source.  STL source is also excellent code to study.  It is very well
written code.


CONTENTS

I have put together four articles for the STL FAQ:
  I.    Sources
  II.   References of STL (M. Corcoran).
  III.  Report from Lockheed on their first experiences with
  STL.
  IV.   On using MODENA by Edgar Crisostomo (along with some
  needs in education that he sees for STL)
  V.    Comparison of Modena and ObjectSpace by Mike Lindner.

REQUEST FOR OTHER MATERIAL  If someone has other material or
experiences to include you may e-mail them to me and I will add them.
Especially of interest would be examples of STL that you may have
developed as you learn STL or industrial applications or porting
instructions for different platforms.  Please state whether I may use
your article in the FAQ and whether I may use your name.

COMING SOON:  Section on Technical Questions and Answers that I have
been collecting from the net.

Marian
===============================================================
PART I  SOURCES

1.  Where does one get the STL?

    A. anonymous ftp via butler.hpl.hp.com
  works with Borland 4.5 and IBM
  also includes something on hash tables not in STL
   by Bob Fraley
     no support included

    B. STL++: Modena Software at 1-800-MODENA-1
  works with Borland, IBM C Set++, Apogee, Visual
                    C++ 2.0 (this last has some limitations.)
  comes with tutorial, you can get the tutorial
   separately (read this tutorial after A.
                     Stevens and after playing with ObjectSpace
                     examples.)

    C. STL<ToolKit>:ObjectSpace at 1-800-OBJECT-1
  most C++ compilers
  code is well documented
        comes with tutorial with over 200 elementary
   examples that have just been placed in the
                     public domain available
                     via anonymous ftp via butler.hpl.hp.com at
    /stl/examples.Z or .zip for PC
          These examples are a good place to start.


     D. libstdc++ (part of libg++): Free Software Foundation
  anonymous ftp via prep.ai.mit.edu and many other
  machines only some containers exist, but works
              with GNU C++, and probably many other C++
              compilers

     E.  RogueWave to include STL, coming out in Sept.

===============================================================
PART II  REFERENCES

A. PERIODICALS
    D. Jordan. ODMG Update: Collections in ODMG-93
    Discusses ODMG and STL.  C++ Report, June 1995
    A. Koenig. File iterators. Journal of Object-oriented
 Programming  (JOOPS), Nov/Dec 1994
    A. Koenig. Generic iterators. JOOPS, Sept. 1994
    A. Koenig. Templates and generic iterators.
 JOOPS, June 1994
    A. Koenig. ? . January , 1995
    D.R. Musser and A.A. Stepanov. Algorithm-oriented generic
 libraries.  Software-Practice and Experience, July 1994
    N. Meyers. A New and Useful Template Technique:    Traits
      C++ Report, June 1995
    A.A. Stepanov and M.Lee.  The Standard Template Library.
 ISO Programming Language C++ Project. Doc. No.
      X3J16/94-0095, WG21/N0482, May 1994.  (Look in HP's ftp
       for stl.doc, I believe). Although it is the "definitive"
       STL, it is not intro material.
    A. Stevens. He has an interview with Stepanov in Dr. Dobb's
 Journal, March 1995.  This is an excellent conceptual
       introduction to the STL, also a good place to start.
    A. Stevens.  The Standard Template Library (with some code)
       in his column, Dr. Dobb's Journal, April 1995.
       Also good intro material.
    B. Stroustrup. Making a vector fit for a standard. C++
       Report, Oct. 1994. intermediate level material.
       Stroustrup made some important contributions to the
       design of STL, discussed here.
    M.J. Vilot. An introduction to the standard template
      library.  C++Report, Oct 1994. You might want to read
       Stevens first.
    M.J. Vilot. Standard Library Update: An overviewof what's
      there.  C++ Report, February 1995.
    Also see
 http://www.cs.rpi.edu/~musser/stl.html
 This material is also available via anonymous ftp
       ftp.cs.rpi.edu in directory pub/stl the file
 stl-info.ps.Z
  includes STL Online Algorithm Reference by R. Cook,
 D. Musser, and K Zalewski with examples.
 See ObjectSpace examples first.

  B.  STL Web Pages -    Newbie    guide
 http://weber.u.washington.edu/~bytewave_stl.html
   1.  Intro material including Stepanov Speaks on STL in C++
       (M. Corcoran),
   2.  Dr. Dobbs article (A. Stevens), STL newbie notes
       (M. Khan),
   3.  STL by Stepanov & Lee, STL files, and ANSI C++ Draft
       (HTML version)


==============================================================
EXPERIENCES FROM LOCKHEED

We've just obtained STL<ToolKit> for use with our HP cfront
compiler and the Softbench development environment. Here are
the first impressions & observations:

Apparently ObjectSpace doesn't routinely deliver 4mm DAT tapes
and added $25 to do it. The tape we recieved was DOA
(unreadable) but the ObjectSpace support folks quickly e-mailed
the TAR-file and we were in bussiness. We did not experience
the problems reported by Mike Linder contacting the ObjectSpace
people. The above problem was solved within two hours.

Our experience with installing and building the libraries
supports Mike Linder's observations. Good job here by the
vendor.

Compiling with the debug option (-g) resulted in many warnings
similar to the following:

CC: "release1.C", line 28: warning:
debug.emit_type_entry:typedef node has no symid_ptr: vector
<X*> ::size_type (187)
CC: "release1.C", line 28: warning:
debug.emit_type_entry:typedef node **has no symid_ptr: vector
<X*> ::const_reference (187)

The executable does run and the debugger still works, however.

Note that the person evaluating STL<ToolKit> is not an
experienced C++ programmer and is proceding on the strength of
a C++ class. His first impressions of the ObjectSpace
documentation are favorable and he was able to write a simple
program from a standing-start in a few hours. We also have the
documentation from HPs public-domain STL. I'll keep you posted.

===============================================================
ON USING MODENA at SIEMENS-ROLM

   We use Modena STL++ v2.0 - they respond fairly quickly to
our needs, they add bug fixes or compiler support for our
Unixware 2.0 SDK C++ compiler, and they answer our many
technical questions.

The STL++ Manual has a "Files" Heading at the top of each
component description, and that is all that should be
explicitly #included to use that component (mutual
independence).

When I #include <vector.h>, it pulls in all the other dependent
includes.  It is not explicitly stated, but for C-like arrays,
you #include <algobase.h>.

There are minor problems, I will report to Modena (example:
hashfun.h has non-template function _definitions_, so you get
multiply defined, when used over several translation units.
To improve the ability (for us) to specify manual template
instantiation, it would be nice if they factor out the
non-inline template definitions into another file.

EDUCATIONAL HINTS
A discussion of build issues would be useful.  Especially since
STL template code can have really obscure compiler messages
with todays compiler technology.  There are also issues with
debugging template code.

A discussion of when to pass container by reference, versus
passing iterators would be useful.

Edgar Crisostomo    408-492-6528, edgar@clipper.robadome.com
Systems Software, Siemens Rolm Communications, Inc. FAX
408-492-3305

=============================================================
PART IV
COMPARISON OF MODENA AND OBJECTSPACE

I just bought STL++ from Modena and STL<toolkit> from
ObjectSpace, for purposes of comparison.  So far I have not had
a chance to use either extensively, but I have the following
observations:

Modena was very helpful on the phone, and responded quickly to
whatever I called about.  The initial floppy they sent me was
bad, and they replaced it overnight.  In every case but one
technical question, the person who answered the phone was able
to do everything I needed.  In the remaining case, I received a
call back within hours of my question.  I like their service.

 ObjectSpace had an operator, who directed me to the one
salesperson, who was always "out of the office" when I called,
and who was the only one who could sell me the product (it took
5 days just to order the product, because I couldn't get in
touch with her).

Both products come as source, and you must build the libraries
yourself.  The documentation for doing this from Modena was
sketchy, and it wasn't until I called tech support that I
discovered I had to change some files by hand to make them
compile with my compiler (which is one of the one's they
advertise as working with).

ObjectSpace, on the other hand, has a neat little config
package that tests what your compiler can do, and writes a
header file which configures the code to be correct for your
compiler (lots of preprocessor magic in them there header
files).  It was a joy to use.

So far, the test programs I have compiled are much smaller when
I use the ObjectSpace libraries than with the Modena libraries.
 As I said, I have not stressed either product, so these
numbers may not reflect use in an actual application.

As for conformance, ObjecSpace doesn't necessarily support
everything in STL, but only as much as they can squeeze out of
the compiler you give them to work with.  Is that good or bad?

The ObjectSpace library claims to be "thread safe", although I
haven't tried that our yet.  Apparently they have a wrapper
class that behaves like a smart pointer, but can be locked for
reading or writing.  They also have some other platform
independent thread and mutex code.

  The Modena folks said their library is not "thread safe", but
only in one place, and they would gladly show me how to modify
the source to add that feature.  One of my compiler vendors
says they'll be shipping Modena with their compiler soon, and
their version will be thread safe.

Modena includes some extra goodies, like hash tables and an
ANSI string class.  ObjectSpace has added some features
recently as well.

Mike Lindner
mikel@attmail.com
mpl@cmprime.attpls.com
mpl@pegasus.att.com