> Does C# do the same thing?
To some extent. Points in time (DateTime) and durations (TimeSpan) cannot be mixed either, although you can subtract two DateTimes and get a TimeSpan, or add a TimeSpan to a DateTime. But I guess those work in C++ just as well.
Internally they are all based on ticks, which are 100-ns intervals (in DateTime since 0001-01-01) stored as a signed 64-bit integer. Different quantities of time don't need different types because there's only one type that represents a duration.
But with any complex interface, wouldn't it be a good idea to introduce a less complex facade that only deals with common usecases, and for complex use cases use that underlying interface?
The whole point of the complexity chrono interface is to prevent mistakes caused by accidentally mixing different units. Providing a default unsafe interface would completely defeat the point.
That an interesting point of view to take in defence of C++ of all things.
Sorry, I might misparsing your replay, but are you saying that std::chrono is overly strict? Or that because C++ (and its C heritage) has allowed unsafe implicit conversions in the past, it should continue doing it in the future?
Does C# do the same thing?
[1] the underlying type actually encodes the exponent as a non-type template parameter. Converting from ms to us correctly applies the multiplicative factor.