3 ms·

Seeing how the Rust community seems to have converged on using `uint` as the default type for array indexing and so on; wouldn't it make sense to reflect that i

Seeing how the Rust community seems to have converged on using `uint` as the default type for array indexing and so on; wouldn't it make sense to reflect that in the complexity of the name of the types? Instead of (uint, int) we could have (int, sint) or (uint, sint).

dilap 12y ago
You are going to confuse a hell of a lot of people if you make int mean "unsigned integer"!
- long 12y ago
  So maybe "nat" for "uint", then?
  - ufo 12y ago
    nat makes me think of arbritrary-precision numbers. I think uint is fine.
    - Arnavion 12y ago
      Also not all of the world agrees upon whether 0 is a natural number or not.
steveklabnik 12y ago
> wouldn't it make sense to reflect that in the complexity of the name of the types? There has been a huuuuuge amount of discussion about int/uint and naming, expect some clarification sometime soonish, as any changes (if any) would have to be made soon.
Igglyboo 12y ago
No because it will confuse people from pretty much every other language that uses 'int' to mean 'signed integer'.
zcdziura 12y ago
Just for legacy sake, it probably wouldn't make sense to switch the meaning of 'int' in Rust to 'uint', whilst creating a new type 'sint' to emulate the old meaning of 'int'. Legions of up-and-coming developers have learned what an integer is, and it would be incredibly counter-productive to change up that definition for one particular programming language.
vowelless 12y ago
In addition to what the others have said, it would also be semantically incorrect. Integers in mathematics are signed. So that terminology would not cross over very well.
heinrich5991 12y ago
Yea, and it is being misused in a lot of places. In this project, `u32` would probably be a better fit as you try to serialize data – this should happen in a platform-independent way.

3 ms·

Seeing how the Rust community seems to have converged on using `uint` as the default type for array indexing and so on; wouldn't it make sense to reflect that i

by thomasahle 12y ago

dilap 12y ago
You are going to confuse a hell of a lot of people if you make int mean "unsigned integer"!
- long 12y ago
  So maybe "nat" for "uint", then?
  - ufo 12y ago
    nat makes me think of arbritrary-precision numbers. I think uint is fine.
    - Arnavion 12y ago
      Also not all of the world agrees upon whether 0 is a natural number or not.
steveklabnik 12y ago
> wouldn't it make sense to reflect that in the complexity of the name of the types? There has been a huuuuuge amount of discussion about int/uint and naming, expect some clarification sometime soonish, as any changes (if any) would have to be made soon.
Igglyboo 12y ago
No because it will confuse people from pretty much every other language that uses 'int' to mean 'signed integer'.
zcdziura 12y ago
Just for legacy sake, it probably wouldn't make sense to switch the meaning of 'int' in Rust to 'uint', whilst creating a new type 'sint' to emulate the old meaning of 'int'. Legions of up-and-coming developers have learned what an integer is, and it would be incredibly counter-productive to change up that definition for one particular programming language.
vowelless 12y ago
In addition to what the others have said, it would also be semantically incorrect. Integers in mathematics are signed. So that terminology would not cross over very well.
heinrich5991 12y ago
Yea, and it is being misused in a lot of places. In this project, `u32` would probably be a better fit as you try to serialize data – this should happen in a platform-independent way.