Proper use of of typedef in C++

Question

I have coworkers who occasionally use typedef to avoid typing. For example:

typedef std::list<Foobar> FoobarList;
...
FoobarList GetFoobars();

Personally, I always hate coming across code like this, largely because it forces me to go lookup the typedef so I can tell how to use it. I also feel like this sort of thing is a potential slippery slope... If you do this, why aren't you doing it more? (pretty soon, your code is totally obfuscated). I found this SO question regarding this issue:

when should I use typedef in C

I have two questions: 1) am I truly alone in disliking this? 2) If the vast majority of people think this sort of typedef use is OK, what criteria do you use to determine whether to typedef a type?

Answer 1

The two big arguments for this type of typedef are the reduced typing, which you've already mentioned, and the ease of changing over to a new type of container. A FoobarList could be backed by a vector or a list or a deque and switching would often just require changing a typedef.

Your dislike of them when it comes to looking them up, is quite reduced when dealing with IDEs, since I can just hover over the type name, and the IDE tells me what it's defined as.

The more useful situations are when you have nested containers - you can give the names some semantic meaning without having to define entire classes:

typedef std::list<Foobar> FoobarList;
typedef std::map <string, FoobarList> GizmosToFoobarsMap;

You can also save a LOT of typing when dealing with iterators of these types (although that's reduced now that C++0x has auto.)