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by stinos 4484 days ago
Maybe for programmers that are only used to reading C, pre-C++11 and the likes. On the other hand when you are used to read more dynamic languages where typenames are much less written down literally (say C#/Python/Matlab just to name what comes up in my head), it doesn't make much difference. I'm also not sure if it makes that much of a difference for templates? Those are already quite type-agmostic. E.g. if your template typename is T, there's not much difference in writing `auto x = T()` vs `T x = T()`. Except the (imo) improvement that you are not repeating yourself in the auto case.
2 comments
roel_v 4483 days ago
Yes, certainly as you say, which is what concerns me - the notion that types are something that is best buried, by an influx of new users.

And certainly - the case of auto x = T(); is not too bad. It's when the type is determined by template overload, or Koenig lookup, or template traits, that it becomes murky. It will take years for tool to catch up - now when I put my cursor on a variable, it will show me the type in the status bar. For the first few years this will always show 'auto' I'm afraid. In other languages, a collection is a collection (mostly) - in C++ it depends on whether you use a vector, set, hash or list what methods are available. That's quite a difference, from a programming comfort point of view.

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stinos 4483 days ago
the notion that types are something that is best buried

that was not really my claim though - types should not be buried in C++. Either the context should be clear enough to know what type it is. Or, like for lots of template code, the type simply should not matter. Obviously in those cases auto shines. In other words: if the code is written properly it shouldn't matter if auto is used or not. (and in my experience if all your functions are nice and short, as they should be 99% of the time)

You do have a good point about the tooling though (which tooling is it you use btw? Haven't used anything but VS lately, and it's ok for the way I use it, but I can imagine having to go from clearly seeing all types to not being able to is an awful experience)

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roel_v 4483 days ago
No I realize you're not saying that, I'm afraid that some people will come to C++ thinking that, that was what I was trying to say.

Visual Studio with Visual Assist is what I'm using - I love it but in the future the only way to deduce some types is by compiling code, I'm afraid.

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danielweber 4483 days ago
auto is a godsend for iterators.
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