Daniel Mitchell <danmitchell@mail.utexas.edu> writes:
I know I'm entering this discussion a little late, so forgive me if this has already been said, but I fail to see the point of having an unsigned_integer. I understand that certain quantities are intrinsically non-negative and therefore the idea of an unsigned_integer has aesthetic value, but my experience with the built-in types is that unsigned integers create more problems than they solve. (I'm talking about subtraction and comparison to signed types.) An infinite precision signed integer can represent all the same values as an unsigned integer, so from a practical point of view, why bother with the unsigned type at all? It seems to me that it just introduces a lot of unnecessary complexity.
Agreed 100%. -- Dave Abrahams Boost Consulting www.boost-consulting.com