5 ms·

I agree. A lot of languages have settled on those same names or something similar. We don’t live in a world with a single word size anymore so carrying bit leng

I agree. A lot of languages have settled on those same names or something similar. We don’t live in a world with a single word size anymore so carrying bit length in the name is critical, and so is keeping identifier names short. His trade off is exactly the one I would make.

WalterBright 3y ago
> carrying bit length in the name is critical I beg to disagree. In D: byte - 8 bits short - 16 bits int - 32 bits long - 64 bits absolutely nobody is confused about this.
- iforgotpassword 3y ago
  Because we've used those names since forever, but that's archaic random crap really. Nothing apart from maybe "byte" makes sense here, the rest is completely arbitrary historic cruft. Could as well have called the rest timmy, britney and hulk.
  - runiq 3y ago
    > Nothing apart from maybe "byte" makes sense here Lest we forget: https://web.archive.org/web/20170403130829/http://www.bobbemer.com/BYTE.HTM https://web.archive.org/web/20170403130829/http://www.bobbem...
  - layer8 3y ago
    Java uses exactly the same, and has a huge developer mindshare. While rooted in historic accidents, it's well-established.
- another2another 3y ago
  In that case D should probably start to have an internal conversation about what they're going to call 128 bits then, 'cause its going to become a thing sooner or later. stdint already has that covered though: (u)int128_t
  - gallier2 3y ago
    it has defined the type for very long: it's cent and ucent. It hasn't implemented it completely though, but named and defined it is already forever.
    - fps_doug 3y ago
      So will the 256bit one be dollar or euro?
      - WalterBright 3y ago
        We'll think of something. Perhaps `bright`?
    - another2another 3y ago
      That's really interesting, and for me a totally unexpected name, having never seen that nomenclature before - would be interesting to see how consensus around that was arrived at - but hey, we gotta call it something! (But not DoubleQuadWord please ... )
- gallier2 3y ago
  and ubyte - 8 bits ushort - 16 bits uint - 32 bits ulong - 64 bits ucent - 128 bits float - 32 bits double - 64 bits real - maximum precision hardware allows (80 bits on x87).
- eviks 3y ago
  Of course plenty of people are confused, the overhead of "short/long" just makes no sense, but yet another bad design from the past carefully preserved
  - WalterBright 3y ago
    Haven't run into a confused one yet, and D has been around 20 years.
    - eviks 3y ago
      That's just an indication of who you run into if you've missed people noticing/getting confused by this pretty obvious flaw
- seanw444 3y ago
  When we move into the 128-bit CPU era, will we call 128-bit integers "super long"? Maybe "elongated". Maybe "huge"? Or, you know, we could just name them all by bit length and completely future-proof this system.
  - richard_todd 3y ago
    We used to call 16-bytes a paragraph, so the nostalgic geek in me would love to see ‘para’ catch on. I never thought I’d be slinging around whole paragraphs of memory in registers!
  - ogogmad 3y ago
    Why would we ever need 128-bit CPUs? I remember the PS2 had something like that (with details and caveats I don't understand), but subsequent games consoles went back to a more usual register size: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/128-bit_computing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/128-bit_computing
    - seanw444 3y ago
      All I know is we keep having this issue with saying "nah, this is it. Nobody will ever need more than this." And then inevitably the time comes when we need more.
      - WalterBright 3y ago
        Back in the 80s, 16 bit programmers knew that 32 bit code was coming, so they carefully crafted the code to be portable to 32 bits. Of course, none of it worked on 32 bit machines because the programmers had never written 32 bit code before and did the portability measures all wrong.
  - WalterBright 3y ago
    We call them "cent" and "ucent" in D :-)
- guidoism 3y ago
  Wait, isn't long 32 bits, long long is 64 bits.

WalterBright 3y ago

> carrying bit length in the name is critical I beg to disagree. In D: byte - 8 bits short - 16 bits int - 32 bits long - 64 bits absolutely nobody is confused about this.

iforgotpassword 3y ago
Because we've used those names since forever, but that's archaic random crap really. Nothing apart from maybe "byte" makes sense here, the rest is completely arbitrary historic cruft. Could as well have called the rest timmy, britney and hulk.
- runiq 3y ago
  > Nothing apart from maybe "byte" makes sense here Lest we forget: https://web.archive.org/web/20170403130829/http://www.bobbemer.com/BYTE.HTM https://web.archive.org/web/20170403130829/http://www.bobbem...
- layer8 3y ago
  Java uses exactly the same, and has a huge developer mindshare. While rooted in historic accidents, it's well-established.
another2another 3y ago
In that case D should probably start to have an internal conversation about what they're going to call 128 bits then, 'cause its going to become a thing sooner or later. stdint already has that covered though: (u)int128_t
- gallier2 3y ago
  it has defined the type for very long: it's cent and ucent. It hasn't implemented it completely though, but named and defined it is already forever.
  - fps_doug 3y ago
    So will the 256bit one be dollar or euro?
    - WalterBright 3y ago
      We'll think of something. Perhaps `bright`?
  - another2another 3y ago
    That's really interesting, and for me a totally unexpected name, having never seen that nomenclature before - would be interesting to see how consensus around that was arrived at - but hey, we gotta call it something! (But not DoubleQuadWord please ... )
gallier2 3y ago
and ubyte - 8 bits ushort - 16 bits uint - 32 bits ulong - 64 bits ucent - 128 bits float - 32 bits double - 64 bits real - maximum precision hardware allows (80 bits on x87).
eviks 3y ago
Of course plenty of people are confused, the overhead of "short/long" just makes no sense, but yet another bad design from the past carefully preserved
- WalterBright 3y ago
  Haven't run into a confused one yet, and D has been around 20 years.
  - eviks 3y ago
    That's just an indication of who you run into if you've missed people noticing/getting confused by this pretty obvious flaw
seanw444 3y ago
When we move into the 128-bit CPU era, will we call 128-bit integers "super long"? Maybe "elongated". Maybe "huge"? Or, you know, we could just name them all by bit length and completely future-proof this system.
- richard_todd 3y ago
  We used to call 16-bytes a paragraph, so the nostalgic geek in me would love to see ‘para’ catch on. I never thought I’d be slinging around whole paragraphs of memory in registers!
- ogogmad 3y ago
  Why would we ever need 128-bit CPUs? I remember the PS2 had something like that (with details and caveats I don't understand), but subsequent games consoles went back to a more usual register size: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/128-bit_computing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/128-bit_computing
  - seanw444 3y ago
    All I know is we keep having this issue with saying "nah, this is it. Nobody will ever need more than this." And then inevitably the time comes when we need more.
    - WalterBright 3y ago
      Back in the 80s, 16 bit programmers knew that 32 bit code was coming, so they carefully crafted the code to be portable to 32 bits. Of course, none of it worked on 32 bit machines because the programmers had never written 32 bit code before and did the portability measures all wrong.
- WalterBright 3y ago
  We call them "cent" and "ucent" in D :-)
guidoism 3y ago
Wait, isn't long 32 bits, long long is 64 bits.