Unsigned types have an absolute advantage for unsigned values: they have twice the range. This turns out to have useful performance advantages e.g. in large dat

Unsigned types have an absolute advantage for unsigned values: they have twice the range. This turns out to have useful performance advantages e.g. in large data infrastructure software. In typical C++ metaprogramming for this type of software, the integer types for processing code paths are often generated using the most compact primitive type because it is expected that billions of instances of these types may be in memory and trillions in storage, and there are multiple integer types where the required range of values for each are interdependent. A considerable amount of design in database engines, for example, goes into maximizing scalability while minimizing the total footprint of integer type instances. This is a function of the expressible non-negative range of the types, and cutting it in half will cause some of the types to be promoted, doubling their footprint. It is difficult enough to squeeze them into unsigned types without a step change in integer size as it is. That overflows are well-defined, in contrast to UB, has value in cases of bugs because the consequences of the bug will be well-defined and less subject to clever compiler optimizations.