Depends on your application I would say, if you build a database you want it to be able to store more automatically when hardware gets better. If you store phys

Depends on your application I would say, if you build a database you want it to be able to store more automatically when hardware gets better. If you store physical measurements from sensors you know for sure that this sensor can only give values within a certain range, there you want to ensure you have the range required and it's also redundant to use a larger variable. I would still prefer int_least32 over just int though to be more explicit.