2013/2/10 kenji hara <[email protected]> > > I opened the pull request #1413 in the beta term for 2.061, but it had > _accidentally_ released without deeply discussion. > https://github.com/D-Programming-Language/dmd/pull/1413 > > I think and believe that we MUST reset things. >
Why I argue that the syntax `alias this = sym;` is wrong? Because: 1. A normal alias declaration (creating aliased name for existing symbol) and alias this feature (making a *subtyped* struct through implicit access to its field) are entirely different and has distinct semantics. They merely share a keyword 'alias'. 2. Instead, we can have much more consistent, useful, and scalable syntax. At the same time, I proposed a new syntax `alias this : ident;` for alias this feature. https://github.com/D-Programming-Language/d-programming-language.org/pull/200 struct S { int value; alias this : value; // proposed syntax } Benefits of the proposed syntax are: 2a. It is consistent with class inheritance syntax `class C : B {}`. 2b. It is scalable for multiple alias this feature, as like `alias this : sym1, sym2, ...;` . If D community highly require the syntax `alias this = sym`, I'll agree to adding it again. But for that, we should discuss about its cost and benefit. Sorry for my poor writing. Regards. Kenji Hara
