alt Hacker NewsUnsigned is certainly a misnomer for a wrapping type. That does not mean it is a type design mistake. And I agree that people should not use it much.
But what I do not believe is that there is a real need for a non-wrapping non-negative integer type.
> But what I do not believe is that there is a real need for a non-wrapping non-negative integer type.
So the most obvious counter example is so obvious you might not even have remembered it's a type, the unsigned 8-bit integer or byte.
But frankly if you don't have the wrapping mistake they just make for a pretty good general purpose index, they're a useful counter, there's a reason we called these the "Natural numbers".