'Helper' functions in C++

Question

While refactoring some old code I have stripped out a number of public methods that should actually of been statics as they a) don\'t operate on any member data or call any othe

Answer 1

The main advantage to using a namespace is that you can reopen it and add more stuff later, you can't do that with a class. This makes this approach better for loosely coupled helpers (for example you could have a Helpers namespace for your entire library, much like all of STL is in ::std)

The main advantage of a class is that you can nest it inside the class using it, you can't nest a namespace in a class. This makes this approach better for tightly coupled helpers.

You won't have any extra overhead having them in a class vs a namespace.