STL iterators do not use inheritance. Iterator tags do.

Ah, you're referring to the inheritance relationships between the iterator tags, not the iterators themselves. The tags are metadata, not objects. The inheritance is a trick used in the guts of the algorithm implementations because C++ doesn't let you overload functions on concepts. You can't use that to claim the STL is object-oriented. You never have to inherit from anything to use the STL, even if you write your own custom iterators.

Anyone can tell you Boost is a mixed bag. It was begun as an incubator for future std libraries, and it's succeeded: most of the new libraries in C++11 were Boost libraries first. Shared_ptr, chrono, random, regex... all good libraries. That's not to say all the Boost libraries should be in the standard, or are fit for that.

Don't let Stepanov hear you say the STL is object-oriented. He has famously trashed OO, very publicly. Also, where do the iterator's use inheritance?

Will this help me write an application in C++? No? Then don't call it a tool for developers. We're not all web monkeys.

Oh, hell yeah. I celebrated New Year 3 times last year: Western, Vietnamese, and Thai. Songkran was the best. Soaked head to toe, pool dance party until 3am. Buy your super-soaker early. Stores sell out.

If I could, I'd mod you up. I was pretty aghast as well.

I'd do the same, but for different reasons. I'm atheist, but the historical record is pretty convincing that a man named Jesus really lived 2000 years ago, and that he was a rabble-rouser, and had a bit of a following. Looking around me today, I have a hard time naming a single person who has had a deeper impact on the world. Think of it: from the Roman persecutions, through Charlemagne, the Medieval church, the Crusades, the great thinkers and artists and musicians and architects who helped shape the western world we know ... all the good and bad through the ages from one man. It leaves me with a burning question: what the heck happened 2000 years ago? What did this man say that affected so many people? You want to prove that miracles didn't happen. Big deal, who cares? I want to understand what happened to the world.

I'm stunned nobody has yet made the cowboy coffee/cowboy neal connection.

Couldn't have said it better myself. assert(Win2K == best && ME == worst);

Do you not get irony? She's holing a rainbow flag, you twit.