6 ms·

I've heard a lot about NULL being considered a multi-billion-dollar mistake, but not a lot about the wishy-washy integer types hierarchy. The more explicit std

by ohazi 7y ago

I've heard a lot about NULL being considered a multi-billion-dollar mistake, but not a lot about the wishy-washy integer types hierarchy. The more explicit stdint types (e.g. uint32_t) are both safer and more portable. Modern languages like Rust seem to agree... (u8, i32, etc). The argument I've always heard was that you want your program to use the sizes that the architecture can handle most efficiently. But actually, I don't. I'd rather my program run correctly, the way I intended, even if that means it runs a little slower on a sparc or powerpc. The combinatoric explosion of size hierarchies is basically impossible for normal people to reason about or test for.

Gibbon1 7y ago
Yeah things I would get rid of in c is 'int' and the wishy washy integer type non sense that goes with it. The whole thing was a big pain in the ass until pure 32 bit machines came along and everyone forgot. Now it's a pain in the ass again. I'd also add range types ala Ada.
- noneeeed 7y ago
  Range types were one of my favourite features of the Ada type system. Such a simple idea, but super effective, and really useful when doing static analysis. Being able to push constraints to the interface simplified a lot of things.
  - account42 7y ago
    Something like that is what I am hoping we get with contracts when they make it into C++. Although the versions so far only add constraints to functions, having them on types as well sounds very useful.
    - noneeeed 7y ago
      It's great. It allows you to push the responsibility for checking values are in type right out to the earliest point, reducing the need to sprinkle bounds checking code all over the place. If you are using static analysis like SPARK or one of the others, it then lets you do a load more of it automatically, the constraints it places on values makes it much easier to statically demonstrate runtime properties of the code before.
- BoiledCabbage 7y ago
  Yet one more thing that LISP/Scheme got right: Number Towers. Avoid all of this craziness, and just works the way the user intends. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerical_tower https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerical_tower

by ohazi 7y ago

Gibbon1 7y ago

Yeah things I would get rid of in c is 'int' and the wishy washy integer type non sense that goes with it. The whole thing was a big pain in the ass until pure 32 bit machines came along and everyone forgot. Now it's a pain in the ass again. I'd also add range types ala Ada.

noneeeed 7y ago
Range types were one of my favourite features of the Ada type system. Such a simple idea, but super effective, and really useful when doing static analysis. Being able to push constraints to the interface simplified a lot of things.
- account42 7y ago
  Something like that is what I am hoping we get with contracts when they make it into C++. Although the versions so far only add constraints to functions, having them on types as well sounds very useful.
  - noneeeed 7y ago
    It's great. It allows you to push the responsibility for checking values are in type right out to the earliest point, reducing the need to sprinkle bounds checking code all over the place. If you are using static analysis like SPARK or one of the others, it then lets you do a load more of it automatically, the constraints it places on values makes it much easier to statically demonstrate runtime properties of the code before.
BoiledCabbage 7y ago
Yet one more thing that LISP/Scheme got right: Number Towers. Avoid all of this craziness, and just works the way the user intends. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerical_tower https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerical_tower