http://blogs.msdn.com/b/brada/archive/2003/09/02/50285.aspxOne of the highlights of my career here at Microsoft was working on version 1 of the CLS – Common Language Specification . It started as just one meeting between a few of the compiler and framework folks to list off the framework design features thaten-USTelligent Evolution Platform Developer Build (Build: 5.6.50428.7875)http://blogs.msdn.com/b/brada/archive/2003/09/02/50285.aspx#1329649Wed, 20 Dec 2006 13:30:26 GMT91d46819-8472-40ad-a661-2c78acb4018c:1329649seeyou<p>WhatistheCLS:CommonLanguageSpecification</p> <p>WeareinthemiddleofclosingdowntheV2ofthe...</p> <img src="http://blogs.msdn.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=1329649" width="1" height="1">http://blogs.msdn.com/b/brada/archive/2003/09/02/50285.aspx#50287Fri, 19 Sep 2003 15:54:00 GMT91d46819-8472-40ad-a661-2c78acb4018c:50287Peter IbbotsonThe problem with NOT having unsigned arithmetic is that CRC algorithms and various other bits and pieces get to be a real pain to write. Anything that bit twiddles is a nightmare to write. I've done these in VB6 using currency to get code that always worked regardless of the overflow flag but it's a pain. (mind you I also hand decoded ethernet packets off a scope to check that my CRC calculation was correct, so perhaps I'm a special case) <div style="clear:both;"></div><img src="http://blogs.msdn.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=50287" width="1" height="1">http://blogs.msdn.com/b/brada/archive/2003/09/02/50285.aspx#50286Thu, 04 Sep 2003 00:53:00 GMT91d46819-8472-40ad-a661-2c78acb4018c:50286Kevin WestheadI agree about unsigned types in so much as I only really use them to simplify interop definitions, although this should also have been a good enough reason to see their inclusion into VB.NET as well as C# at v1.0. One other useful application of unsigned types is with bit-shifting, such as in the generation of hashcodes, since you don't have to worry about the sign-bit.<div style="clear:both;"></div><img src="http://blogs.msdn.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=50286" width="1" height="1">