On Friday, 8 July 2016 at 20:57:39 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
On 7/7/2016 7:25 PM, Andrew Godfrey wrote:
"static" is a terribly non-descriptive name
That's why it's the go-to keyword for any functionality we
can't think of a good name for, or if the name would be too
long such as "launch_nucular_missiles".
For a moment I thought Walter was being comical. But then I
looked
at the Index in TDPL, and I see static class constructor, static
class
destructor, static if, static import, static this, and just plain
static.
Also, Andrei, if you're listening, I've spotted another TDPL
errata.
On page 459, the Index entry for "static, obligatory joke about
overuse
of" lists page 345, but in fact the joke is in the footnote at
the bottom
of page 68.
As for me, the main thing I dislike about static if is that it
blends in
visually a bit too well with run-time code segments. C's #if
structure
has its own problems, but I like the distinctiveness.
An earlier comment about wanting a different name got me to
thinking.
For naming variables, I own two copies of a high-quality
thesaurus.
One copy I keep at work, one copy I keep at home. It's
invaluable when
you get stuck at naming things. Why not apply that same tool to
naming
keywords as well? So I looked. I didn't see anything precisely
on
target; maybe these come closest:
constant if
durable if
persistent if
adamant if
unalterable if
immutable if
Okay, that last one is a joke, considering that we're talking
about
keyword overloading. But the effort did spark some other brain
cells
to fire. So we could have had any of these:
exactly if
strictly if
only if
I do like the creative use of an adverb instead of an adjective
in these
choices; the code reads like standard English instead of a clunky
made-up
phrase. I also especially like the briefness and precision of
"only if",
and that may become my favorite way to think about this in the
future.
(Is there some way I can "#define only static" to get this
effect?)
In fact, it is presaged on page 48 of TDPL, from whence I quote:
"the
basic plot is simple -- static if evaluates a compile-time
expression and
compiles the controlled statement only if the expression is
true". So you
the language designers had the idea in hand, but then sadly
overlooked it.
