Should one prefer STL algorithms over hand-rolled loops?

Question

I seem to be seeing more \'for\' loops over iterators in questions & answers here than I do for_each(), transform(), and the like. Scott Meyers suggests that stl algori

Answer 1

I'm a big fan of the STL algorithms in principal but in practice it's just way too cumbersome. By the time you define your functor/predicate classes a two line for loop can turn into 40+ lines of code that is suddenly 10x harder to figure out.

Thankfully, things are going to get a ton easier in C++0x with lambda functions, auto and new for syntax. Checkout this C++0x Overview on Wikipedia.