The size of C++ integer types is implementation specific and one should use the types provided by the <cstdint> header for the code to be portable (std::uint32_t etc).

So, when you want to write safe code you're going to use the typedefined types - this means that everyone who doesn't want their code to explode would use these types. What use do I have for the 'pure types' then? Might as well remove them and make the typedefined types 'pure types'. And since it's a bit annoying to write the names of the typedefined types I might as well rename them to the previous 'pure types'.

I don't see how it would hurt if the standard said how big the types should be. Right now you can't make assumptions about the size, if you could it would only be better. This situation is incredibly stupid, can't believe they didn't fix this for the C++11 standard.