size_t vs uintptr_t

[Walter Bright via Digitalmars-d]

On 6/14/2016 11:31 PM, Jacob Carlborg wrote:
>> Ok, I admit these are not likely to emerge. But I'd like our code to be
>> pedantically, nitpickingly correct, as well as self-documenting.
> I'd like that too, but as you said it's not an issue on any supported platforms.
> Therefore I think we have much more important stuff to do than worry about than
> fixing this.
>
> As Andrei has said:
>
> "Let's keep the eyes on the ball".

1. I'm not saying this is a priority, more like something to keep in mind.
2. Lots of people say they are looking for simple ways to get into contributing. 
This qualifies.
3. Sweating the details is what makes for great software.


Some anecdotes:

I once toured a new house for sale. My agent pointed out that the screw slots on 
the electric wall plates were all lined up. I said who cares. The agent said he 
looked for that, because it was indicative of the general contractor caring 
about the details, and if he'd do right things that didn't matter, it was a good 
clue he'd done the right things on things that did matter.

I once looked at a high end Sony projector a long time ago. The salesman said 
that Sony put their better techs on building this product, and you could tell by 
the way the resistors were installed - they all were oriented the same way 
(resistors work exactly the same way no matter which way they were installed). 
This wasn't true of the low end products.

Back in college I had a side job assembling electronics boards. I learned how to 
assemble them perfectly neatly, everything lined up just so. I got paid well 
because my boards worked first try.

In EE91 lab, where students designed and built a project for the semester, I 
could just glance at them and tell which students' projects were going to work 
and which were not. The ones that were going to work were neatly done, the ones 
that were not were a snarl of wires and components. I can't remember ever being 
wrong about my predictions.

I don't believe that software is any different.