[maccard]

> While I agree that some Makefiles are terrible, I disagree that make is absolutely horrendous.

I agree with the parent on this point (although make is not _the_ C/C++ build system) - makefiles are horrible. Make is arcane, full of quirks that bite you as a beginner, and suffers hugely from being not-portable (gnu make is not the same as other flavours, and make on windows is practically non-existent)

> could you point me towards something that is not type safe in C++

Not the parent but [0] is a reasonable example.

[0] https://gcc.godbolt.org/z/csjnM4

[hermitdev]

I think your example here is pretty disingenuous because you haven't created any types, merely aliases of 'meter' and 'centimeter' that are of type int.

A better example of breaking type safety would be to involve a reinterpret_cast or a C-style cast, or maybe pass something through a void*.

[maccard]

I don't disagree that I haven't created any types, but to someone who doesn't see the declaration of meter or centimeter, it can be difficult to know that. Especially if you combine it with almost always auto.

You can created tagged structs, but you inevitably end up needing to extract the value underneath.

Regarding casts and void pointers, I think they're a slightly less dangerous case. My Spidey senses tingles whenever I need casts - static (or to a certain extent dynamic) casts are normally ok, but a reinterpret cast or a void* parameter is going to warrant a discussion and explanation in a code review.

[hermitdev]

> I don't disagree that I haven't created any types, but to someone who doesn't see the declaration of meter or centimeter, it can be difficult to know that.

We definitely agree here. Better would be to use a library such as Boost Units, rather than naked aliases.

void* is definitely problematic, and I kill it every chance I get, but it persists in a lot of code due to C libs and unfortunate legacy dependencies.

[maccard]

Sorry I missed this.

> Better would be to use a library such as Boost Units, rather than naked aliases.

Completely agreed.

> void* is definitely problematic, and I kill it every chance I get, but it persists in a lot of code due to C libs and unfortunate legacy dependencies.

I've not seen it (thankfully) in anything other than actual C code or graphics code, but whenever I do see it, I make a mental note of "here be dragons" and make sure to take extra care around there... It's not ideal but it's life..

[jandrewrogers]

In a type safe C++ style, 'meters' would be a numeric-like class with explicit casting operators etc.

[infinite8s]

Would a single member struct work as well? Can C++ optimize that away?