64 bit architectures and C/C++

[Doug Gwyn]

In article <45690005 at hpcupt3.cup.hp.com> shankar at hpcupt3.cup.hp.com (Shankar Unni) writes:
>But in my (humble?) opinion, much trouble would be headed off if C compilers
>on 64-bit architectures would simply dispense with the 16-bit type and make
>sizes of int == long == void * == 64 bits, and short == 32 bits.  Why is it
>so terribly important to have a 16-bit data type?

It isn't important, except perhaps to people who are trying to port
poorly-implemented code that managed to depend on such a system-dependent
feature.  Such code undoubtedly has far worse problems that that anyway.

By the way, there is NO NEED to say what data size choices a 64-bit
implementation "should" make.  It "should" not matter to any sensible
application.