On 08/04/2014 12:15 AM, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
I suspect it is one of those ideas of Walter's that has consequences
that reach further than anyone foresees..... but that's OK, because it
is fundamentally the correct course of action, it's implications
foreseen and unforeseen will be correct.
Agreed.
No, please hold on. Walter is not a supernatural being.
Walter has always meant assert the way he discusses it today.
This argument has no merit. Please stop bringing it up.
That said, should we proceed carefully about realizing this advantage? Of
course; that's a given.
That is reasonable.
But I think it's very important to fully understand
the advantages of gaining an edge over the competition.
Note that this is achievable without claiming the Humpty Dumpty
privilege once again. Furthermore the potential for the development of
concepts is actually usually larger if concepts stay properly separated
from the beginning.
E.g. the current proposal already has the issue that an assumption of
unreachability cannot be expressed in the straightforward way:
switch(x){
// ...
default:
assert(0); // cannot be optimized away in -release
}
