auto is not a code smell on the contrary, it is used when your type system is easy enough to reason about that you don't need to write the actual type.
If it's so easy to reason about, why can't you just state the type of the variable? Doing so helps me understand what's popping out from the rvalue in assignment so that I can follow what your code is doing.
If you're worried about spending time changing type names during a refactor, look at it instead as an opportunity to evaluate the correctness of the code in the context of your replacement type. Use of the auto keyword avoids doing that and as a result enables you to create new and exciting bugs in your code.
> If it's so easy to reason about, why can't you just state the type of the variable?
because :
- easy to reason about and easy to type are two differents things
- naming everything increases mental load
> Use of the auto keyword avoids doing that and as a result enables you to create new and exciting bugs in your code.
to the contrary, porting a lot of my code to use almost-always-auto did actually remove bugs in the form of silent type conversions happening - e.g. std::pair<std::string, int> instead of std::pair<const std::string, int> (yay memory allocations), bad fp conversions...
If you're worried about spending time changing type names during a refactor, look at it instead as an opportunity to evaluate the correctness of the code in the context of your replacement type. Use of the auto keyword avoids doing that and as a result enables you to create new and exciting bugs in your code.