TwinBasic

[Niya]

i think TypeDefs in C were invented because C-Programmers are lazy buggers :-)

Errr...not so fast. They are a great feature when used with discipline. I've grown to appreciate them over the years because of it's usage in the Win32 API. They can make things a lot easier to understand when used properly.

For example, take HWND and HBITMAP. Both these things are nothing more than a HANDLE typedef which in turn is a typedef for a void pointer(void*) . This means that both HWND and HBITMAP are just ordinary pointers. But when you encounter HWND while reading a piece of code, you immediately know what is expected, in this case, a handle to a window. Without typedefs, you would have void* all over the place and you could never be sure if a certain function expects a handle to a window or a bitmap. Typedefs can help make it much easier reason about what a piece of code is doing because of the extra information it provides to the one reading the code. Without typedefs, the only other way to do this would be to use classes and structures which are both good options but sometimes it's overkill. Typedefs allow you a way to create new types without actually creating new types which is an incredibly efficient way of solving this problem.

The thing is, it's extremely easy to abuse and if one is not careful, it can make code thoroughly unreadable. It could very well be the most destructive feature ever conceived in the world of programming when used improperly. It requires incredible discipline to use this effectively in a large codebase. The Microsoft guys are very disciplined and still, it sometimes feel like a chore trying to decipher typedefs in their C++ header files. Typedefs are not a feature to treat lightly.