Am 22.01.2012, 10:44 Uhr, schrieb Jonathan M Davis <jmdavisp...@gmx.com>:
On Sunday, January 22, 2012 10:31:17 Marco Leise wrote:
Am 22.01.2012, 08:23 Uhr, schrieb bcs <b...@example.com>:
> Rename them bits{8,16,32,64} and make the current names aliases.
So everyone uses int, and we get messages like: "This program currently
uses -1404024 bytes of RAM". I have strong feelings against using signed
types for variables that are ever going to only hold positive numbers,
especially when it comes to sizes and lengths.
Whereas others have string feelings about using unsigned types for much
of
anything which isn't intended for using bitshifts with. Lots of bugs are
caused by the use of unsigned integral values. I know that Don wishes
that
size_t were signed and thinks that it's horrible that it isn't. I
suspect that
you will find more people who disagree with you than agree with you on
this.
Now, whether having bits8, bits16, etc. is a good idea or not, I don't
know,
but there are a lot of programmers who don't particularly like using
unsigned
types for normal arithmetic, regardless of what values the variable
holds.
- Jonathan M Davis
I heard that in the past, but in my own experience using unsigned data
types, it did not cause any more bugs. OTOH, textual output is more
correct and I find code easier to understand, if it is using the correct
'class' of integers. But this "a lot of programmers who don't particularly
like using unsigned types" must come from somewhere. Except for existing
bugs in the form of silent under-/overflows that do not appear alarming in
a debugger due to their signedness, I've yet to see a convincing example
of real world code, that I would write this way and is flawed due to the
use of uint instead of int. Or is this like spaces vs. tabs? 'Cause I'm
also a tab user.
