Agreed, I thought this is a wrapper for STL under Python, what does the py prefix stand for here actually?

As for the why c++ at all, as long as one falls into the "don't care" category, it works fine.. lately I found myself I rather build my apps in C with NODEFAULTLIB (under Windows at least), and creating my own size-optimized standard library which on Windows wraps the Win32 API wherever possible. The size savings are incredible, my executable is in the ~500KB range, ultra small and ultra fast. This is unattainable with normal modern C++.