why you should prefer std::algorithm...

Today i worked on a huge legacy code base when i meet (1x more) the following kind of loop:

std::vector<int> vec;
...
int max_value = 0;
for ( int i=0 ; i<(int)vec.size() ; i++ )
  {
    if (vec[i] > max_value)
    {
      max_value = vec[i];
    }
  }

I was wondering why some developer always try to reinvent the wheel ?

C++ comes with a tons of useful algorithm to do that kind of stuff, and with an explicit name. In example that code can be rewrite with:

#include <algorithm>
...
std::vector<int> vec;
...
int max_value = *std::max_element<std::vector<int>::iterator >(vec.begin(), vec.end());

it's shorter and more explicit...

Note for C++11 users:

auto max_value = *std::max_element<std::vector<int>::iterator >(begin(vec), end(vec));