Re: Design, enums, and const ints

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I've never encountered the BitVector32 class before, but after skimming
the documentation for it, my suggestion is to ditch it and just store
your bits in a BitPos variable. BitVector32 doesn't really seem to do
much other than wrapping the &, |, and << operators, unless you're
using it in "section" mode.

Furthermore, since enums can be based on any integer type, they can
store 8, 16, 32, or 64 bits, while a BitVector32 is always 32 bits
wide. For example, to define an enum that can hold 64 bits, start the
definition with "enum BitPos : long" instead of just "enum BitPos".

If you need to use BitVector32, for example to hide the details of
bitwise operations from inexperienced programmers who might read your
code, then I'd suggest storing the masks in static readonly int fields.
I wouldn't use constants, because that seems like an unnecessary mixing
of the two worlds - if you're going to hardcode the masks yourself
(rather than using CreateMask), why not go all the way and do the
bitwise operations yourself too?

Jesse

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