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signed overflow (or underflow) is frequently undefined behavior. (often because it's undefined in C)

unsigned is frequently defined. (often because it's defined in C)

tough choice.

(honestly I just lean towards "over/underflow should raise unless explicitly allowed", the ratio of unintended to intended-and-fully-checked overflow behavior is almost certainly FAR beyond 100:1)

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Of course unsigned is defined. That's besides the point. The point is: how often in your code, do you expect 1 minus 2 to equal a very large number, vs. the number -1.

both seem equally undesirable to me in all cases where I intend neither. though one also risks undefined behavior, so that is strictly worse.

the reason I use a type system is to make error classes unrepresentable (where possible) or a failure. these are both leaky abstractions in the worst possible manifestation: silent misbehavior at runtime.

I honestly feel like it is the point at which you find field arithmetic intuitive that demonstrates you have finally understood computers.

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