"So it's not a generic data structure, then." In generic C++ code, you can specialize a part of the generic algorithm to tune it to a particular use case. Usua

"So it's not a generic data structure, then." In generic C++ code, you can specialize a part of the generic algorithm to tune it to a particular use case. Usually it takes the form of a small class template which can be specialized for a particular type and is used by the generic algorithm operating on that type. This class template is called trait, policy or strategy depending on the way it is used. "qsort and std::sort do completely different things. Comparing them is absurd. qsort takes the size and comparison operator at runtime. std::sort requires them to be specified at compile times." Not at all, you can pass a function pointer to std::sort just as well if you need to [0]. Most of the time you don't need this indirection but in C you are stuck with it unless you copy-paste-edit qsort. [0] https://godbolt.org/z/M1v8azojT https://godbolt.org/z/M1v8azojT