Similar to the Necronomicon, a C++ source code file is a wicked, obscure document that’s filled with cryptic incantations and forbidden knowledge. When it’s 3 A.M., and you’ve been debugging for 12 hours, and you encounter a virtual static friend protected volatile templated function pointer, you want to go into hibernation and awake as a werewolf and then find the people who wrote the C++ standard and bring ruin to the things that they love. The C++ STL, with its dyslexia-inducing syntax blizzard of colons and angle brackets, guarantees that if you try to declare any reasonable data structure, your first seven attempts will result in compiler errors of Wagnerian fierceness:
Syntax error: unmatched thing in thing from std::nonstd::__ map<_Cyrillic, _$$$dollars>const basic_string< epic_ mystery,mongoose_traits < char<, __default_alloc_<casual_ Fridays = maybe>>One time I tried to create a list<map<int>>, and my syntax errors caused the dead to walk among the living.
Obviously you need a space between the >> so it recognizes the template declaration rather than a right shift. ;-) And hey, don’t be hating on the STL, doesn’t everyone love the fun little front() pop_front() dance to get a value out of a queue?