Notes on C++

This is a list of stuff to remember when programming in this hell of a language called C++. I hate every single second of my life when I'm programming with it. Unfortunatelly, I'm forced to some times.

By the way, this is mostly about C++98, except when noticed. The sanest version. Yes. Even the sanest version.

I'll update this rather frequently.

• Never, ever copy a std::vector. They create a new instance of the underlying memory every time you copy them. Always keep only a single instance and pass pointers to it. Yes, this means you have to dynamically allocate them when they're shared with lower stack frames.
• Never, ever copy std::string also.
• Always reserve space in std::vector. Never, ever create one without reserving sane space first. They usually grow in dumb always, for example starting at 0 capacity and growing by 50% at each increment, when the sane way would be starting at about 8 and grow by doubling.
• Never use std::endl. They force a flush onto the underlying stream. A newline will flush a life-buffered output stream anyways, and you definitely don't want to force flush a file output.
• Avoid static duration objects as their initialization and termination processes happens at a not well-defined time.
• Classes only have RTTI when they're virtual, so, if, for some reason, you (May God help you) need typeinfo for a non-polymorphic class, you must use a placeholder USELESS virtual function like virtual void ImAClownForCodingInThisShittyLanguage().
• When you have a std::vector<T>, passing a T* to it's push_back() method may compile without errors and fuck you a lot.
• If you have a std::vector<T*>, calling it's clear() won't delete the memory of the objects the vector holds, tho it'll call it's destructors.