Understanding the C++ std containers is almost a complete lesson in data structures. std::set is typically a red black tree, std::unordered_set is a hash table,

Understanding the C++ std containers is almost a complete lesson in data structures. std::set is typically a red black tree, std::unordered_set is a hash table, etc. Looking at how these containers are implemented and understanding how/when to use which really separates the men from the boys when it comes to scaling and efficiency. You can probably learn the concepts from other languages, but it's been my experience that C++ devs typically understand these concepts more so than most.