On Mon, Nov 27, 2000 at 04:09:44AM -0600, Jamie Ostrowski wrote:
>  (My C happy-face wrinkles repugnantly at the visual of a template, point
> and click object-oriented Candy Land)

I'm not a C++ guy, so I may be wrong (and expect to be repeatedly and
verbosely corrected if I am...), but my understanding of "templates" in the
context of C++ is that they are a language construct which allows you to
define generic classes (and functions?).  For instance, you could create a
'sort' method which takes a generic 'pile-o-data' as a parameter and then
pass it a linked list, array, collection, or any other data structure of the
week (as long as it's a properly-defined pile-o-data, of course) and get it
sorted.  (I would imagine that this is implemented using a lot of the same
logic as OO polymorphism, but, again, that's just a guess based on hearsay.)

C++ templates have nothing to do with pointy clicky GUI garbage.  (Neither
does OO, for that matter.  I think that misconception is probably the result
of marketing droids who assume that the "objects" in "object-oriented" must
mean "those things I can see on the screen".  As usual, their grasp of the
technology they mean to sell is tenuous, at best.)

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