When I'm programming in C++, I generally use the C standard library and make my own custom data structures. Sure, it probably takes longer, but I know it has what I want and need. I think the main drawback of the STL is that it isn't very well documented, though I haven't used it much myself. From what I've seen, though, it doesn't appear too difficult to use. I generally don't use a very large portion of the standard libraries of either language, really, just what I need for file IO etc.