On Wednesday, 15 February 2012 at 15:35:37 UTC, bearophile wrote:
foobar:
1. D templates are an enhanced version of C++ templates which
are a poor design. The problem stems IMO not from issues with
OOP but rather with the horrible idea of C++-like templates.
Other languages have *much* better solutions which integrate
better.
C++ is one of the most commonly used languages, probably there
are billions of lines of C++ in use, and C++ library code uses
templates often, so despite the well known flaws of C++
templates (bloat, bad error messages, etc), they are somehow
"good enough", they aren't horrible.
Compared to C++, D templates introduce constraints, a better
syntax, and more uniform/sane semantics of details. Bjarne
Stroustrup is still trying to invent simplified Concepts to
improve C++ templates, to give them "static" types.
Java generics, C# generics, Ada generic programming, C++
templates, ML polymorphism, Haskell type inference with type
classes, Haskell template extensions, are designed to satisfy
different needs and constraints. All of them are used and
useful, none of them are perfect.
Bye,
bearophile
I beg to differ. I was talking about the *design* aspect of
templates and you seem to agree that it is flawed. the design
*is* horrible and can be compared to other better designs. The
fact that it is used in so much software is a completely
orthogonal matter. Most people use qwerty keyboards (including
me) but that does not mean it's the superior design. on the
contrary, it was *intentionally* designed to be flawed for
historical reasons that are no longer relevant. what is "good
enough"? it is highly subjective. Is it enough to be commonly
used by many people? what other criteria would be required to
classify as good enough and not worth improvement? should we
never strive to achieve better designs?
I don't know Haskell and won't comment on the above mentioned
features but regarding generics (e.g in C#) - they have no
conflicts with OOP and are a good feature.
