On Fri, Dec 13, 2013 at 06:42:26AM +0100, Brian Rogoff wrote: > On Friday, 13 December 2013 at 05:22:26 UTC, Ross Hays wrote: > >>Yeah, is-expression syntax is one of the dark, ugly corners of D > >>that unfortunately we're stuck with, because changing it now will > >>totally break a LOT of code for merely cosmetic reasons. I honestly > >>wish that one day this mess could be cleared up, though I'm not > >>holding my breath for it. > >> > >> > >>T > > > >I know this is probably obvious, but if D were allowed to just > >make one big breaking change for D3 or something, and fix every > >dark corner it has. Would that really be so bad? I know it would > >break things but... I kind of long for it. > > I'm sympathetic to this POV, or something similar. For example, a > multiyear plan to deprecate the 'is' syntax and replace it with > something better, in the current D. I'm not a fan of gratuitous > changes which make the language unstable, but if there were a > pleasing design to replace 'is' I'd like to think that D users could > change the relevant sources given a long enough deprecation window.
I vote for this. Good luck convincing Walter, though. > Changing every dark corner and every poor choice is too much. For > instance, a lot of people think that immutability and 'nothrow' > should have been the default, but changing that would be dramatic > and probably will have to wait for a D3 or new language. [...] Not to mention such a big change (or such numerous fundamental changes) would probably introduce new dark corners that then need fixing. :) Language design ain't easy. T -- It is of the new things that men tire --- of fashions and proposals and improvements and change. It is the old things that startle and intoxicate. It is the old things that are young. -- G.K. Chesterton
