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Their use as index to arrays sounds reasonable. However in this case it may be wiser to give them less friendly names than those for the 32-bit and 64-bit coun
by alok-g 13y ago
Their use as index to arrays sounds reasonable. However in this case it may be wiser to give them less friendly names than those for the 32-bit and 64-bit counterparts. To not have portability issues, it is important that the programmer understands when int and uint should be used (index to arrays, the sizes of which could be machine dependent) and when specified-size integer types (when representing application-specific data).
- pcwalton 13y agoYeah, we considered naming them intptr_t and uintptr_t, but the "use an int to index an array" is so ingrained into programmers' collective consciousnesses that we decided it was pretty futile to go against the grain here.
- alok-g 13y agoI don't really buy that reasoning. :-) If the goal is not to clean up bad things, we may just stay with C++. When a new language comes and the programmer is already having an intention to learn something new, probably is working on a new project, this state is the best opportunity for the cleanup. Once the language matures, legacy codebases become rampant, that opportunity is gone forever with that language. Did you consider naming the type something like 'index' itself, if that is the predominant good use-case for the type?