There isn't one (because what you want for long strings makes short string operations too slow, or because you need strings stored in a certain format or in a c

There isn't one (because what you want for long strings makes short string operations too slow, or because you need strings stored in a certain format or in a certain place for other reasons). So I like the idea of polymorphism so you can adjust the implementation. C++ has polymorphism, but for some reason not enabled for strings (they needed to use all virtual member functions to allow it).