STL error messages are so great!!!

STL is a great library to use when programming with C++. It contains loads of helpful data structures (stacks, queues, lists, …) and a set of useful algorithms (sort, swap, min, max,…) which are efficiently implemented. However, there’s a major problem with STL; how to decipher the error message.

In the sample C++ program below, I have on purpose missed the iterator in the insert statement; instead of typing “aList.insert(aList.begin(),10);” I typed “aList.insert(10);”

Sample Program:

#include <iostream>
#include <vector>

using namespace std;

int main(){
      vector<int> aList;

       aList.insert(10);    // iterator purposely missed here

       return 0;
}

Error Message:

pascal@zetwal:~/temp$ g++ stltest.cpp
stltest.cpp: In function ‘int main()’:
stltest.cpp:9: error: no matching function for call to ‘std::vector<int, std::allocator<int> >::insert(int)’
/usr/lib/gcc/i486-linux-gnu/4.0.3/../../../../include/c++/4.0.3/bits/vector.tcc:93: note: candidates are: typename std::vector<_Tp, _Alloc>::iterator std::vector<_Tp, _Alloc>::insert(__gnu_cxx::__normal_iterator<typename _Alloc::pointer, std::vector<_Tp, _Alloc> >, const _Tp&) [with _Tp = int, _Alloc = std::allocator<int>]
/usr/lib/gcc/i486-linux-gnu/4.0.3/../../../../include/c++/4.0.3/bits/stl_vector.h:657: note: void std::vector<_Tp, _Alloc>::insert(__gnu_cxx::__normal_iterator<typename _Alloc::pointer, std::vector<_Tp, _Alloc> >, size_t, const _Tp&) [with _Tp = int, _Alloc = std::allocator<int>]

Do they seriously think I’m supposed to understand that???