On 6/4/25 12:53 PM, monkyyy wrote:

> Iota should mutate the underlining data and does.

There is no underlying data for some ranges like iota because they are generators. Yes, it's a complication that D uses the term "range" for generators as well.

> Unjustifiably slices
> are in the weird limbo,

My mental model of slices differ from many old-timer D people here. There is no limbo in my mental model: Slices are always a lightweight interface (i.e. the range) to contained elements.

What is missing in D language is that there is always a container of elements that the slice provides access to. The fact that the container (the array) not having a name causes the confusion. People necessarily say "add an element to the slice". That is not accurate in my mental model: The element is always added to the container, the slice is just an interface to it.

Yes, it's weird that an element accessor is capable of adding elements to the unnamed array. I accept my mental model despite this weirdness.

> the autodecoding's popFront is raw mutation.

As the following example shows, there is no mutation to the contained elements though. Only the slice (the range) changes:

import std.range : popFront;

void main() {
    auto slice1 = [ 1, 10, 42 ];

    auto slice2 = slice1;
    slice2.popFront();

    assert(slice1 == [ 1, 10, 42 ]);    // <-- No mutation
}

> I
> think the some of the rng primitives also just mutate. Nullable is a
> range for some God-Forsaken reason, it would have to mutate data.

I wasn't aware of that. I wonder whether someone thought it would improve generality? But that topic is beside the point here, which was the separation of containers and ranges.

Ali

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