There is a tradeoff between writing special-case code yourself, calling a special-case library routine, and calling a general-case library routine. I would like to have:

• Speed: Naturally, I want my program to run as fast as possible. General-case library code usually does not give me speed, because it’s not optimized for my particular situation. I’d be better off using special-case code. Hand-written code is usually (but not always) best here, because it can take advantage of specialized knowledge of the data.
• Flexibility: I want to have code that works in many different situations. Special-case library code does not give me flexibility, because it’s only written for certain situations. I’d be better off using a general-case library routine or my own code (which I can copy and modify in new situations) for flexibility. A general-case library is best because I don’t have to copy and paste (a maintenance nightmare).
• Ease of Coding: I want to write as little as possible to get the job done. Writing code myself does not satisfy this goal. I’d be better off using a library routine. Special-case library routines are best because I don’t have to specify as many parameters.

As you can see, none of the solutions gives me all three. Given any one goal, there is a corresponding best solution. Given any one solution, I can only get two out of three goals. In this document I present a comparison of sorting in C and C++, and show that with C++ STL, you can get all three.

Appendix: Running Times

by Amit Patel

http://theory.stanford.edu/~amitp/rants/c++-vs-c/

Programming Tutorials

http://www.cprogramming.com/tutorial.html