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Getting Started

Getting Started

More than twenty-five years ago, AT&T Bell Laboratories' Doug McIlroy wrote

The software industry is weakly founded.... One aspect of this weakness is
the absence of a software components subindustry.

Components subindustry is a manufacturing metaphor: McIlroy believed that software production could be improved by the availability of high quality, off-the-shelf components, in much the same way that manufacturing had been helped by the existence of standardized screws, resistors, and subassemblies.

After giving reasons why he thought such an industry had not yet developed - and what it would take to bring one about - McIlroy offered his vision of the future:

I would like to see components become a dignified branch of
software engineering.
I would like to see standard catalogues of routines....
I want to have confidence
in the quality of the routines....
I want the different types of routine in the catalogue
that are similar in purpose to be engineered uniformly,
so that two similar routines
should be available with similar options.

C++ Standard Components is our answer to McIlroy's vision.


Next topic: C++ Standard Components

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