Chapter 1. About This Book

Although templates have been part of C++ for well over a decade (and available in various forms for almost as long), they still lead to misunderstanding, misuse, or controversy. At the same time, they are increasingly found to be powerful instruments for the development of cleaner, faster, and smarter software. Indeed, templates have become the cornerstone of several new C++ programming paradigms.

Yet we have found that most existing books and articles are at best superficial in their treatment of the theory and application of C++ templates. Even those few books that do an excellent job of surveying various template-based techniques fail to describe accurately how these techniques are supported by the language. As a result, beginning and advanced C++ programmers alike are finding themselves wrestling with templates, attempting to decide why their code is handled unexpectedly.