Pretty much every C++ developer i've ever interacted with the last 25 years -informally- refers to the standard library as 'STL'.
I do not think anyone with even a small amount of C++ experience will be confused when 'STL' is referenced in the context of C++.
Of course it might be that every C++ developer i've interacted with doesn't really know the language very well. But considering the popular axiom that says something along the lines of 'people who claim they know C++ do not really know C++ while people who know C++ do not claim they know C++' what you wrote might actually be true :-P.
Yeah but, it's one thing to informally refer to it as the STL; people will know what you're talking about. It's another to write an article about the standard library and say "The C++ standard library (also know as the STL)," which is a false statement and implies the author doesn't know what they're talking about. That's what the parent is referring to, I think. Personally no one I know has even informally referred to it as the STL since at least C++11, so it's a bit jarring to read.
One of the main contributors to the C++ standard library refers to it that way. I can also confirm that many members of the C++ Committee refer to it that way as well.
> I'm pretty good at language lawyering code patterns that the STL uses, but I only know a tiny slice of modules.
From a different comment around the same time [1]:
> Life would be easier if we could do a hard migration from classic includes to named modules, but the STL can't do that.
> <snip>
> For MSVC's STL, we have the headers (happy fun land), std.ixx (has to be built by the user, but otherwise is simple), and the separately compiled code that goes into msvcp140.dll/libcpmt.lib (scary town, complicated, always built classically in the VS Build Lab, knows nothing about modules).
Well, a lot of people in general use words incorrectly when speaking informally, that doesn't make that usage correct. Irregardless, for all intensive purposes, I could care less how people say STL.
Yes, language evolves over long periods of time, but not all incorrect spelling and usage is language evolving in front of our eyes. Sometimes, it's just poor English knowledge.
Also, pedantry warning, the phrase is "intents and purposes", not "intensive purposes". Also "could care less" implies you do care, "couldn't care less" implies you don't.
Well that's his point. But in the context of this discussion, if he's writing a post about English idioms and expressions and writes like that, no one is going to take his opinion seriously.
I do not think anyone with even a small amount of C++ experience will be confused when 'STL' is referenced in the context of C++.
Of course it might be that every C++ developer i've interacted with doesn't really know the language very well. But considering the popular axiom that says something along the lines of 'people who claim they know C++ do not really know C++ while people who know C++ do not claim they know C++' what you wrote might actually be true :-P.