Re: C23 thoughts and opinions

On 2024-05-23, David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:

So yes, I /could/ use enum constants for things that are not
enumerations.  I /did/ use them for that.  But going forward with C23,
I'll use constexpr instead.

The value of an enum is:

1. Compiler warns of incomplete switch cases.

2. In a debugger when you examine an enum-valued expression or
   variable, you get the symbolic name:

3. Safety (with C++ enum rules: no implicit
   conversion from ordinary integer type to enum).

Historically, C code bases have abused enums to defined constants
like "enum { bufsize = 1024 }" for understandable reasons, but it is a
cringe-inducing hack, which is also incomplete and inflexible; e.g. what
if we want a floating-point constant.

I've benefited from (3) in C programs that were contrived
to be compilable as C++. (That practice, though, tends to increasingly
hamper your dialect choice though, as the languages diverge and make
only small steps here and there to become closer.)

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