A complete guide to streamlining the design process using today's most powerful new programming components Among the most important components in C++ programming today, collection and container classes can be used for modeling, simulation, GUI development, application frameworks, class libraries, object-oriented databases, persistent libraries, pattern classes, and much more. They also enhance code reuse and promote application modularity. In this book, Cameron and Tracey Hughes show C++ programmers how to use these valuable components to reduce complexity while substantially speeding up the design process. They school you in the theoretical and practical basics, and they provide extensive code examples that help you to see exactly how collection and container classes can work for you. C++ programmers will find in-depth discussions of: The Standard Template Library (STL), containers, iterators, allocators, and algorithms Object-based and template-based collection and container classes in C++ User-defined and persistent collections in C++, including relations and external vectors How object-oriented programming transforms data structures into MetaStructures Disk includes: Extensive programming examples developed in the book The complete STL *Works with most C++ compilers, OS/2TM, WindowsR(R) 95, WindowsR(R) NT, WindowsR(R), and MS-DOS.