red said:
Karl, I did a search for "janek" in my Google Groups. The only post
from 2005 would be the one about namespace vs. class.
To answer Janek's (presumed) question: 1997 is pre-Standard. That
particular edition of TCPPL didn't discuss namespaces properly.
Pre-Standard, the only way to create global data items in their own
namespace was to make them static members of a class.
Actually it is TC++PL 3. Well FDIS was in November 14, 1997 (the
finished content) so we can say it is not pre-standard. Perhaps
Stroustrup himself may shed some light on this (if there were
"pre-standard/non-standard things in the first printing of the book),
however I do not think so.
The answer to OP is that a class is a type, while a namespace is a scope
for grouping related facilities, including classes themselves.