(ref.doc)ccuj-mar95

C/C++ Users Journal
March 95

p 18: Dr Dobb's Journal Excellence in Programming Award
  by Jonathan Erickson
  Linus Torvalds and Alexander Stepanov

p 115: C Programming, by Al Stevens
  Alexander Stepanov and STL
  
  Generic programming: some algorithms [depend], not on some
  particular implementation of a data structure, but only on a few
  fundamental semantic properties of the structure.
  
  I have hopes that STL will introduce a style of programming called
  "generic programming". I believe that this style is applicable to
  any kind of application, that is, trying to write algorithms and
  data structures in the most generic way. Specifying families or
  categories of such structures satisfying common semantic
  requirements is a universal paradigm applicable to anything.

  STL is an example of the programming technology which will enable
  [...] component factories.

  STL deals with things called "concepts". What is an iterator? Not a
  class. Not a type. It is a concept. (Or if we want to be more
  formal, it is what Bourbaki calls a structure "type", what logicians
  call a theory, or what type-theory people call a "sort". It is
  something which doesn't have a linguistic incarnation in C++. But it
  could.