The Standard Library defines powerful, template-based, reusable components that implement many common data structures and algorithms used to process those data structures. We began introducing templates in Chapters 6–7 and use them extensively here and in Chapter 16. Historically, the features presented in this chapter were often referred to as the Standard Template Library or STL.1 We’ll occasionally refer to these features as the STL. In the C++ standard document, these features are simply referred to as part of the C++ Standard Library.
1. The STL was developed by Alexander Stepanov and Meng Lee at Hewlett-Packard and is based on their generic programming research, with significant contributions from David Musser.
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