"Jeff Garland" <jeff@crystalclearsoftware.com> wrote
Why? What would be wrong if we had a plethora of string types (eg: sgi::rope) to select from to meet our programming needs in different contexts? We have container types galore -- that's very useful. I think this sort of thinking is a contributor to a lack of C++ libraries....
I don't think there is such thing as "a lack of C++ libraries". It's just a few _key_ libraries are missing.
Honestly though, I think the advantages of using something other than std::string are minor. The main reason is that std::string is widely used in existing interfaces and code. So a core goal of the library is that you can use super_string in some code and then seamlessly pass that instance to existing interfaces written in terms of std::string for zero cost.
Not exactly... the cost would be runtime -- to allocate a copy of the string. You wouldn't be able to pass anything other than "std::string" to "const std::string&" without copying it first, would you? Regards, Arkadiy