Hello,
I'm an advanced programmer, reading "Ivor Horton's Beginning Visual C++ 2005" and I didn't understand the concept of the std.

If I understand well: The standard library sits inside the IDE and owns funcs/classes/etc names (like cout) but just "points" to the iostream and other header files?
This means that std exist without declaring iostream, but, for instance cout wont work till declaration?
or the std is an outcome of iostream?

Thanks..

Well, there's more to it...the use of 'namespace' gives you the means to set up your own library, or yet, avoids the problem of 'naming convention' conflicts between different pieces of code when including a third-party library or any standardized libraries available (i.e., publicized/standardized reusable code). And it can be inside or outside the IDE of a dedicated host computer, depending on the intent of the application(s) program (e.g., multiple API integration via network with different hosted frameworks).

Just my 2 cents.

Onassis