In C++11, auto just says, "make the type of this thing the same(ish) as the type of its initializer". There is no potential for code bloat, even in theory. In C

In C++11, auto just says, "make the type of this thing the same(ish) as the type of its initializer". There is no potential for code bloat, even in theory. In C++14, auto can be used for generic lambdas, but even those are almost always called with a single set of argument types, so again no code bloat even in theory. (Template code bloat itself is nearly mythical. I've seen exactly one occurrence of it causing a problem, in 8 years of Standard Library maintenance.)