Re: Integral types and own type definitions (was Re: Suggested method for returning a string from a C program?)

On 2025-03-26, Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> wrote:

David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> writes:
[...]

Sure.  But most people have forgotten such details long ago - negative
numbers are not part of daily life (except as an indicator of how much
you owe the bank...).  After all, negative numbers are not natural!

>
Most people understand credits and debits.

It might well be that more people understand negative numbers
better than debits and credits.

When money is added to an account, to know whether that's a debit or
credit you have to know which side of the ledger it is on.

Accounting is a lot simpler when all the accounts just add to zero and
the liability-like accounts, including owner's equity, have negative
balances.

The debit-credit system in the English speaking world is a deliberate
obfuscation of negative numbers, which increases the number of
situations in which people think they need to pay an accountant.

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