title: Anyone using short and byte primitive types, in real apps?
body: <p>I have been programming in Java since 2004, mostly enterprise and web applications. But I have never used <em>short</em> or <em>byte</em>, other than a toy program just to know how these types work. Even in a <em>for loop</em> of 100 times, we usually go with <em>int</em>. And I don't remember if I have ever came across any code which made use of <em>byte</em> or <em>short</em>, other than some public APIs and frameworks.</p>
  
  <p>Yes I know, you can use a <em>short</em> or <em>byte</em> to save memory in large arrays, in situations where the memory savings actually matters. Does anyone care to practice that? Or its just something in the books.</p>
  
  <p><strong>[Edited]</strong></p>
  
  <p>Using <em>byte</em> arrays for network programming and socket communication is a quite common usage. Thanks, Darren, to point that out. Now how about <em>short</em>? Ryan, gave an excellent example. Thanks, Ryan.</p>