'int' is enough for 'length' to migrate code from x86 to x64

[Ary Borenszweig via Digitalmars-d]

On 11/20/14, 5:02 AM, Walter Bright wrote:
> On 11/19/2014 5:03 PM, H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d wrote:
>> If this kind of unsafe mixing wasn't allowed, or required explict casts
>> (to signify "yes I know what I'm doing and I'm prepared to face the
>> consequences"), I suspect that bearophile would be much happier about
>> this issue. ;-)
>
> Explicit casts are worse than the problem - they can easily cause bugs.
>
> As for me personally, I like having a complete set of signed and
> unsigned integral types at my disposal. It's like having a full set of
> wrenches that are open end on one end and boxed on the other :-) Most of
> the time either end will work, but sometimes only one will.
>
> Now, if D were a non-systems language like Basic, Go or Java, unsigned
> types could be reasonably dispensed with. But D is a systems programming
> language, and it ought to have available types that match what the
> hardware supports.
>

Nobody is saying to remove unsigned types from the language. They have 
their uses. It's just that using them for an array's length leads to 
subtle bugs. That's all.