I've seen this complaint that using bools directly causes problems (I agree) but the solution is trivial, either turn those booleans into type-safe distinct val

I've seen this complaint that using bools directly causes problems (I agree) but the solution is trivial, either turn those booleans into type-safe distinct values: flushability {FlushData, DontFlushData}; CloseFile(file f, flushability AndFlushToDisk); or roll the boolean flag into the function name: CloseFile(file f, bool AndFlushToDisk); becomes: CloseFile(file f, bool AndFlushToDisk); // the original, occasionally still needed... // ...but add, and recommend instead CloseFileAndFlush(file f); CloseFile(file f); // does not flush; name does not claim it does Why is this so difficult?