This post post is honestly speaking a bag of garbage and ill advises:
> Some good old habit from C can still be positively used in C++, like the void* pointer and the size parameters.
That's garbage.
There is a clear interest of passing both size AND pointer in a single parameter like `std::span<std::byte>: It bind both value together and guarantee that you do not mess with the size of your buffer.
Pass "data" and "size" parameters through a chain of 5 function calls and there is a non-null probability that you passed "other_size" instead of "size" somewhere. This pattern happens everywhere in old C codebase and has been the source of countless security vulnerabilities and random buffer overflows for decades.
All modern languages (including freaking minimalist Golang) have now a "slice/span" concept built in.
It is not just to annoy programmers (and allow them to complain about 'complexity' in blog posts) but because it is a major improvement in term of memory safety and in term of reducing user errors.
> It seems that some people are really losing the taste for good readable code.
If 'span<std::byte>' or 'span<char>' are unreadable for you. The problem is not span, the problem is you.
These are concepts that has been existing for decades in almost all modern programming languages.
Even in conservative C++, it exists since 2014 in the GSL, in Qt and in boost.
And the interface is no different from vector...no excuse here... It is itself the most basic data-structure in C++.
> Why should people complexify and uglify their C++ code with the uint8_t pointer (or std::byte), when void* works just fine??
Sure. Let's extend the logic: I do propose also to replace all typed arguments with a void* pointer.
Because after all: 'It will just works fine' right ?
Type-safety and clear interface are overrated, we could all use only bytes and remove interface all together to get a closer experience of Fortran 77.
/irony
> Or maybe something even more complicated, like this?
> template <typename T, std::size_t N>
void DoSomething(std::span<T, N> data)
First that is non-sense.
If you want to pass a mutable buffer of byte, the correct signature is:
``void DoSomething(std::span<std::byte> data)``
There is no need for template signature here. You are making things up.
Second, there is also no need for the N parameter
``span<Type,N>`` is only used when enforcing a buffer with its size known at compile time is desirable. It can be for vectorization (e.g buffer is a multiple of the SIMD line) or to make it explicit in the interface (e.g for bloc cipher for instance)
> states that the pointer points to input read-only memory (_In_reads_)
You do that by using `std::span<const std::byte>` in any C++ codebase.
The fact he brags about that as "an advantage" for separated parameter passing just show currently how little is known here.
> My Pluralsight Courses
The kind of C++ code proposed in this blog post would be straight be refused in any PR in almost any serious organization with a proper review process.
So bragging about it on a blog while proposing some C++ teaching is audacious to say the least.
> To finish on that.
The sad thing is that there would be very valid criticism on `std::span<std::byte>`:
- Span does not do boundary check on access by default. Which is a bad design decision in 2026.
- It has an impact on compilation time due to the header inclusion
- std::byte is annoying to work with because it is a hack around an enum instead of a proper C++ builtin type.
But the blog post misses all these points entirely and sticks to complaining about 'Old C being better' the same way your family Grand-Uncle still brags about 'lead gasoline being better' for his 70s Pontiac.