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From: Tim Rentsch <tr.17687@z991.linuxsc.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Why does C allow structs to have a tag?
Date: Thu, 24 Jun 2021 10:33:01 -0700
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John Bode <jfbode1029@gmail.com> writes:

[...]

> To reiterate a point I make a lot - typedef on its own creates leaky
> abstractions.  If I need to know that I have to use the `.` or `->`
> operator on something, I'd rather have it declared as `struct A foo;` or
> `struct B *ptr;` instead of a type name that doesn't convey struct-ness
> at all.  Same reason I don't like it when people hide pointers behind
> typedefs - I once spent half a day chasing my tail because somebody
> created a typedef name for a pointer type and used that as a template
> parameter for a vector in C++, such that when I was using an iterator
> I needed to write
>
>       (*it)->do_something();
>
> However, since the typedef name didn't indicate pointer-ness *at all*, I
> wound up writing
>
>     it->do_something();
>
> and g++ vomited up hundreds of incomprehensible error messages that
> basically boiled down to "you need to use a * here, dummy".

Sounds to me like the culprit is C++, not typedefs.