From: arne@vajhoej.dk   
      
   On 8/29/2025 9:17 AM, Dan Cross wrote:   
   > In article <108g8kk$33isk$1@dont-email.me>,   
   > Arne Vajhøj   wrote:   
   >> On 8/24/2025 7:27 PM, Dan Cross wrote:   
   >>> In article <108dlq4$2fi6h$4@dont-email.me>,   
   >>> Arne Vajhøj   wrote:   
   >>>> On 8/19/2025 1:26 PM, Dan Cross wrote:   
   >>>>> In article <10823ei$3pb8v$3@dont-email.me>,   
   >>>>> Arne Vajhøj   wrote:   
   >>>>>> Whether we follow tradition and call them integer and cardinal   
   >>>>>> or more modern style and call them int and uint is less important.   
   >>>>>   
   >>>>> I would argue that, at this point, there's little need for a   
   >>>>> generic "int" type anymore, and that types representing integers   
   >>>>> as understood by the machine should explicitly include both   
   >>>>> signedness and width.  An exception may be something like,   
   >>>>> `size_t`, which is platform-dependent, but when transferred   
   >>>>> externally should be given an explicit size.  A lot of the   
   >>>>> guesswork and folklore that goes into understanding the   
   >>>>> semantics of those things just disappears when you're explicit.   
   >>>>   
   >>>> The integer types should have well defined width.   
   >>>>   
   >>>> And they could also be called int32 and uint32.   
   >>>>   
   >>>> That seems to be in fashion in low level languages   
   >>>> competing with C.   
   >>>>   
   >>>> Many higher level languages just define that int is 32 bit,   
   >>>> but don't show it in the name.   
   >>>   
   >>> If by "many higher level languages" you mean languages in the   
   >>> JVM and CLR ecosystem, then sure, I guess so.  But it's not   
   >>> universal, and I don't see how it's an improvement.   
   >>   
   >> That are two huge group of languages with a pretty big   
   >> market share in business applications.   
   >   
   > Market share is not the same as influence, and while the JVM/CLR   
   > languages _do_ have a lot of users, that does not imply that all   
   > are good languages.  In fact, only a handful of languages in   
   > each family have any significant adoption, and I don't think PL   
   > designers are mining them for much inspiration these days.   
   >   
   > Again, not universal, nor really an improvement over just using   
   > explicitly sized types.   
      
   It is a huge domain that are totally dominated by two approaches:   
   * no need for declaring variables   
   * declaring variables required but type names not including width   
      (despite width being well defined for the type)   
      
   And market share does matter as it sets developers expectations.   
      
   >> Delphi provide both flavors. shortint/smallint/integer   
   >> and int8/int16/int32, byte/word/cardinal and   
   >> uint8/uint16/uint32. I believe the first are the most   
   >> widely used.   
   >   
   > The older names feel like they're very much looking backwards in   
   > time.   
      
   Developers tend to like what they know.   
      
   >> (64 bit is just int64 and uint64, because somehow they   
   >> fucked up longint and made it 32 bit on 32 bit and 64 bit   
   >> Windows but 64 bit on 64 bit *nix)   
   >   
   > I'd blame C for that.   
      
   Delphi is not C.   
      
   Arne   
      
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