Anyone using short and byte primitive types, in real apps?

Question

I have been programming in Java since 2004, mostly enterprise and web applications. But I have never used short or byte, other than a toy program just to know how these types work. Even in a for loop of 100 times, we usually go with int. And I don't remember if I have ever came across any code which made use of byte or short, other than some public APIs and frameworks.

Yes I know, you can use a short or byte to save memory in large arrays, in situations where the memory savings actually matters. Does anyone care to practice that? Or its just something in the books.

[Edited]

Using byte arrays for network programming and socket communication is a quite common usage. Thanks, Darren, to point that out. Now how about short? Ryan, gave an excellent example. Thanks, Ryan.

Answer 1

I use byte a lot. Usually in the form of byte arrays or ByteBuffer, for network communications of binary data.

I rarely use float or double, and I don't think I've ever used short.

Answer 2

Keep in mind that Java is also used on mobile devices, where memory is much more limited.