Beyond the C++ Standard Library: An Introduction to Boost

Part II. Containers and Data Structures

This part of the book covers the libraries Boost.Any, Boost.Variant, and Boost.Tuple. They are all containers in some sense, although they have virtually nothing in common with the Standard Library container types. These are all extremely useful libraries, which many others and I use to solve programming problems most every day. The problems they solve are not really covered by either C++ or the C++ Standard Library, and they are thus very important additions to our library toolbox. It's interesting to ponder how much the availability of basic data structures affect how we program, and even how we design. Without existing structures, we craft our own, and typically do so with significant consideration ...