[RESOLVED] Are Binary Operators Used Alot in Modern Programming

[Zachm]

I think you are confusing binary operators with Bitwise operators.
Binary operators are operators which take 2 arguments, usually left and right arguments, for example: =, <<, >>, %, ...

Bitwise operators are operators which operate on the bits of a variabe. Ofcourse, some bitwise operators can also be binary operators.

For example, operator &:
Consider the binary representation of a short, it has 8 bits. For instance, the number 7 will be represented as 00000111.

short res = 7 & 1;

So you may ask what does the meaning of the code above. Well, the bitwise operator &, operates as an AND operation on each of the bits. The result bit will be 1 if and only if the 2 arguments matching bit is also 1:

7 (Decimal) = 00000111 (Binary)
                 &
1 (Decimal) = 00000001 (Binary)
                      ------------
res =         00000001 (Binary) = 1 (Decimal)

You can also check this link for more references. About your question, if they are used alot - well it depends on the application and the requirements, but they can speed up calculations plenty of times and I have seen these operators put to commercial use plenty of times.