[bluecalm]

As a recreational C programmer I have the same impression. I've always used typedefs for structs and enums in my code and I think it makes it more readable and easier to work on. My reaction to reading the kernel style guidelines was a surprise and I am happy I am not the only one disagreeing.

[coldpie]

As a "professional" C/C++ programmer (day job), I don't have strong feelings either way. It is frustrating not knowing what the type of a variable is. Am I being passed a pointer, or an integer, or a floating point value, or a whole struct, or what? This really matters! Digging up the definition isn't difficult, but isn't easy, either. I would lean against using typedefs liberally, but I don't feel strongly about it.

Personally I use typedefs as a shortcut. Rather than type boost::shared_ptr<const MyFavoriteClass> over and over, typedef it to ConstMyFavoriteClassPtr for convenience. Then be consistent with that paradigm through the whole project, so you only have to learn it once to know any given Ptr type.

[bluecalm]

Right, I imagine it's completely different in a project a lot of people are contributing to and 1-2 people thing where I am familiar with the whole codebase and define the typedefs myself.