Using different numeric variable types

Question

Im still pretty new so bear with me on this one, my question(s) are not meant to be argumentative or petty but during some reading something struck me as odd.

Im under the assumption that when computers were slow and memory was expensive using the correct variable type was much more of a necessity than it is today. Now that memory is a bit easier to come by people seem to have relaxed a bit. For example, you see this sample code everywhere:

for (int i = 0; i < length; i++)

int? (-2,147,483,648 to 2,147,483,648) for length? Isnt byte (0-255) a better choice?

So Im curious of your opinion and what you believe to be best practice, I hate to think this would be used only because the acronym "int" is more intuitive for a beginner...or has memory just become so cheap that we really dont need to concern ourselves with such petty things and therefore we should just use long so we can be sure any other numbers/types(within reason) used can be cast automagically?

...or am Im just being silly by concerning myself with such things?

Answer 1

Luca Bolognese posted this in his blog.

Here's the relevant part:

• Use int whenever your values can fit in an int, even for values which can never be negative
• Use long when your values can't fit in an int.
• Byte, sbyte, short, ushort, uint, and ulong should only ever be used for interop with C code. Otherwise they're not worth the hassle.