[ODE] ODE and the STL

[Jon Watte (ODE)]

Daniel K. O. wrote:
> 2006/12/25, Bram Stolk <bram at sara.nl>:
>   
>> A list is trivially coded in C++, a vector is a bit trickier, depending
>> on how you use the vector in your app.
>>     
>
> Both of them are tricky if you want to do them right. Let's not suffer
> from Not Invented Here syndrome. Everybody here know how to implement
> data structures and algorithms (or at least know where to look for
> references); that's easy. The hard part is to make it compatible, fast
> and flexible. Can you garantee that the trivially implemented
> list/vector inside ODE is faster than the STL?
>
>
>   


Let's turn the question around: Can you guarantee that a user can easily 
replace the memory allocation strategy used with the STL that ODE uses? 
Within ODE, memory is allocated using dALLOC() right now. If there's a 
dependency on the STL, then memory will be allocated in all kinds of 
contexts, including static start-up, and possibly including 
non-thread-safe contexts (have been bitten several times by this).

STL is great for a self-contained application, where you control all the 
variables. However, the C++ linkage model, especially on Linux, sucks 
for anything resembling separately compiled SDKs/libraries. The Linux 
community has very little impetus to fix this, because they believe all 
applications should come in source anyway. Hence, no solution on the 
horizon.

Note that my judgement is not drawn from ivory tower good wishes for 
best practices and goodwill unto men; they are drawn from shipping real 
software SDKs on multiple platforms for the last ten years.

Cheers,

             / h+