What's next?

What's coming after the release of STLport for Symbian OS? Well, at least a second release will follow shortly, possibly including a full implementation of STL locales and a fix for the missing typeinfo header in the platform SDKs. I'm also considering the possibility of building STLport as a DLL, or as a set of DLLs if a single binary is too large. This will help reduce the size of application executables, saving precious space on the device's memory.

The STL is just my first step towards a better development platform on Symbian OS. The second step will be longer and probably more difficult: porting Boost libraries. If you don't know what the Boost project is, please have a look here: http://www.boost.org. I think every serious C++ programmer should know Boost, regardless of whether he/she decides to use it or not. It's a matter of fact, some developers love Boost and others just can't live with it. I personally love it, in my opinion it is the perfect complement to the STL and to the C++ language itself. The reason why some programmers don't like it is that it is radically different from other libraries, which are usually based on (and often abuse) "ordinary" OOP paradigms and idioms. In contrast, Boost libraries try to enforce those features that are unique to the C++ language, such as compile-time polymorphism and template metaprogramming, resulting in higher-performance elegant code that can be extremely reusable if designed well. The downside is that using Boost is usually more difficult than using other libraries, and that's especially true for developers who don't write C++ programs "the C++ way". If you don't know what I mean, I suggest you to read this excellent book by Herb Sutter and Andrei Alexandrescu: C++ Coding Standards, a must for every C++ programmer.

Of course, neither the STL nor Boost libraries can replace the Symbian API and its nonstandard set of paradigms, rules and guidelines, but they can serve as a base for building an interface layer to abstract away the intricacies of Symbian programming and finally make writing software for this platform easier, safer and faster.

These are my long-term plans. Maybe they're too ambitious, given my lack of spare time...