--- title: The 5 pillars of designing a good C++ library | daily.dev description: Five practical principles for designing good C++ libraries are covered: (1) easy to link and integrate, including bundling dependencies directly in the repo;... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/the-5-pillars-of-designing-a-good-c-library-1bmovkusp twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: The 5 pillars of designing a good C++ library | daily.dev og:description: Five practical principles for designing good C++ libraries are covered: (1) easy to link and integrate, including bundling dependencies directly in the repo;... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/the-5-pillars-of-designing-a-good-c-library-1bmovkusp og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/1bMovKUsP.png og:image:alt: The 5 pillars of designing a good C++ library og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # The 5 pillars of designing a good C++ library **[Low Level Game Dev](https://daily.dev/sources/lowlevelgamedev)** · 18 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Five practical principles for designing good C++ libraries are covered: (1) easy to link and integrate, including bundling dependencies directly in the repo; (2) easy to use, favoring simple functions over heavy OOP and avoiding callbacks; (3) hard to use wrong, by clamping invalid inputs, using references over raw pointers, and splitting functions to eliminate conflicting flags; (4) versatile yet approachable, offering both powerful and simple helper APIs; (5) non-prescriptive, avoiding exceptions, not forcing specific string types, and supporting custom memory allocators. Real-world examples from ImGui, Bullet Physics, assimp, Raylib, and SFML illustrate each principle. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: --- Tags: [#game-development](https://daily.dev/tags/game-development), [#architecture](https://daily.dev/tags/architecture), [#c++](https://daily.dev/tags/c++) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/the-5-pillars-of-designing-a-good-c-library-1bmovkusp) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"The 5 pillars of designing a good C++ library","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/the-5-pillars-of-designing-a-good-c-library-1bmovkusp","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/the-5-pillars-of-designing-a-good-c-library-1bmovkusp"},"datePublished":"2026-07-16T15:28:07.133Z","dateModified":"2026-07-16T15:28:28.398Z","description":"Five practical principles for designing good C++ libraries are covered: (1) easy to link and integrate, including bundling dependencies directly in the repo;...","image":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/8WNhvOpEoWQ/sddefault.jpg","thumbnailUrl":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/8WNhvOpEoWQ/sddefault.jpg","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Low Level Game Dev","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Low Level Game Dev","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--Mggt4-BY--/f_auto/v1724390809/logos/lowlevelgamedev","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/lowlevelgamedev"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/the-5-pillars-of-designing-a-good-c-library-1bmovkusp","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"game-development,architecture,c++","timeRequired":"PT18M","video":{"@type":"VideoObject","name":"The 5 pillars of designing a good C++ library","description":"Five practical principles for designing good C++ libraries are covered: (1) easy to link and integrate, including bundling dependencies directly in the repo;...","thumbnailUrl":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/8WNhvOpEoWQ/sddefault.jpg","uploadDate":"2026-07-16T15:28:07.133Z","duration":"PT18M","url":"https://api.daily.dev/r/1bMovKUsP","embedUrl":"https://www.youtube.com/embed/8WNhvOpEoWQ"}} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Low Level Game Dev","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/lowlevelgamedev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"The 5 pillars of designing a good C++ library"}]} ```