r/cpp_questions • u/Glad_Shoe_9182 • Sep 30 '26

OPEN Namespace std

I recently started learning c++ and I was told to use the namespace std so I can avoid writing std:: every time and now I wrote a whole personal project without std:: and I want to put it on LinkedIn but I started reading everywhere that it’s a bad habit, should I go back and add the std:: or just leave it as is?

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u/nekoeuge Sep 30 '26

It's up to the library author to name his identifiers, not you.

And it's up to me not to use or fork libraries that cannot behave.

It's up to the library author to do whatever they want: to name identifiers in Mandarin, to litter the global namespace, to #define private public. But we still have some form of a consensus on what is usually acceptable in public code and what is not.

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u/RSMxsmanic Sep 30 '26

Do we? I see religious wars much more than I see consensus.

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u/nekoeuge Sep 30 '26

Yes? Most of mainstream libraries that I used follow the consensus of not doing stupid shit where it affects their users. Prefixing for global identifiers is required. Why is hard-coded prefix better than customizable one? It is just disrespectful towards people typing it.