So you really have two arguments in there. For pointers, I'm sure no one will disagree that size_t is a good thing. Which is why any modern low-level language h

So you really have two arguments in there. For pointers, I'm sure no one will disagree that size_t is a good thing. Which is why any modern low-level language has these built-in. As for fixed size types, what are the alternatives? If you wanted a dynamically sized int, you'd either need to reserve all the possible space you'd need (in which case why not just use a int64_t), or you'd need some kind of heap-allocated integer that can resize itself. We can't hide the fact that the machine itself uses fixed-size ints, unless we are willing to live with a leaky abstraction.