type declaration

[Derek Parnell]

On Mon, 1 Jan 2007 21:27:16 +0000 (UTC), %u wrote:

> Why use type declarations like this (below) and instead use human readable
> language to declare what it really is...

I believe there have been some studies done that indicate the use of words
containing a mixture of alphabetic and numeric characters is harder to
read. It appears that there is a type of 'context switch' silently going on
when people see digits in their text.

> The use of "double", "short" and "long" is CUMBERSOME!
> Especially when switching between Processors Architectures.

You do realize that D has defined these data types as fixed length. An
'int' is always going to be 32-bits regardless of the CPU architecture.

> This is trying to be a new language... make it NEW!
> Or at least make these key words SYNONYMOUS!
> 
> D       Meaning            New Key Word
> byte 	signed 8 bits      int8
> short 	signed 16 bits     int16
> int 	signed 32 bits     int32
> long 	signed 64 bits     int64
> cent 	signed 128 bits    int128
> float 	32 bit floating    float32
> double 	64 bit floating    float64

Feel free to add these to your own code first, to try it out.

alias int8    byte;
alias int16   short;
alias int32   int;
alias int64   long;
alias in128   cent;
alias float32 float;
alias float64 double;

And of course, to be consistent, you ought to come up with new terms for
the other 'misnamed' datatypes. 

alias ??? real;
alias ??? ifloat;
alias ??? idouble;
alias ??? ireal;
alias ??? cfloat;
alias ??? cdouble;
alias ??? creal;
alias ??? char
alias ??? wchar
alias ??? dchar

-- 
Derek Parnell