Originally posted by Yves M
Well, STL is indeed difficult to read if you are not used to templates. If you don't know much of STL it's not making things better either. This is one of the reasons, I guess, students are not really taught to use STL at college. Then again there can be a host of other reasons.
Some C++ textbooks are introducing STL right away. For example "Acclerated C++" introduces the "vector" and "string" before talking about arrays and char *

It's all in how you introduce the topic. If a student has never seen a template, then a template won't scare them away and using vector<>, list<>, string, etc. is "natural" to them.

On the other hand, if the same student has been taught procedural, C-like coding, and then introduced to a templates, then things get trickier and more difficult for them to understand.

Here is what Stroustrup has to say in teaching C++.
http://www.research.att.com/~bs/new_learning.pdf

And here is his paper on why C++ is not just an OO language:
http://www.research.att.com/~bs/oopsla.pdf

Regards,

Paul McKenzie