The Standard Library

[ForTheReallys]

OK so I recently read an article on the art of DOOM 3's source code and so I decided to give it a look. Now when I did, I noticed something. The devs only used one of the Standard Library headers, which was queue. They don't even use the string class (I know strings aren't part of the Standard Library but still). Instead they use char *. Why is this? I always hear the string class is much better than a char array. Why do the game developers not use it? Or any of the Standard Libraries for that matter?

[TheIdeasMan]

Hi,

Well the std::string class does have some fancy stuff, but there is a cost. The devs are trying to wring out as much speed and efficiency as possible.

The other thing is that code may have already been written in C, or a C library they are using expects char arrays.

Hope that helps a bit :+)

[ForTheReallys]

Wow that was a much simpler answer than I expected. I understand though. Thank you!