On Monday, 26 November 2012 at 19:59:42 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
On 11/27/2012 5:52 AM, David Nadlinger wrote:
I agree, and if I remember previous discussions on the subject
correctly, it seems like only Walter is in favor of upholding
the
current restrictions of "alias" parameters to symbols. I
simply do not
see a point in pushing compiler implementation details on the
user like
that – for the programmer, a type is a type is a type…
Walter, do you have an example of a situation where the alias
parameter
restriction would be beneficial? (for the D code involved, I
don't mean
the few lines of code avoided in the compiler)
In any case, it will break a great deal of existing code to
change that behavior.
Please stop repeating that "will break lots of code" mantra. D
user base is very small and it doesn't grow *because* issues like
the one discussed do not get fixed. When they are fixed people
may start using the language. And *then* you would have to worry
about backward compatibility. Look at the recent Manu's
complaints and see what people who would really use the language
have wanted from it for years.
