Integer conversions too pedantic in 64-bit

[Steven Schveighoffer]

On Tue, 15 Feb 2011 09:26:21 -0500, spir <denis.spir at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 02/15/2011 02:36 PM, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:

>>
>> Hey, bikeshedders, I found this cool easter-egg feature in D! It's  
>> called
>> alias! Don't like the name of something? Well you can change it!
>>
>> alias size_t wordsize;
>>
>> Now, you can use wordsize instead of size_t in your code, and the  
>> compiler
>> doesn't care! (in fact, that's all size_t is anyways *hint hint*)
>
> Sure, but it's not the point of this one bikeshedding thread. If you do  
> that, then you're the only one who knows what "wordsize" means. Good,  
> maybe, for app-specific semantic notions (alias Employee[] Staff;);  
> certainly not for types at the highest degree of general purpose like  
> size_t. We need a standard alias.

The standard alias is size_t.  If you don't like it, alias it to something  
else.  Why should I have to use something that's unfamiliar to me because  
you don't like size_t?

I guarantee whatever you came up with would not be liked by some people,  
so they would have to alias it, you can't please everyone.  size_t works,  
it has a precedent, it's already *there*, just use it, or alias it if you  
don't like it.

No offense, but this discussion is among the most pointless I've seen.

-Steve