On Thursday, 6 August 2015 at 06:54:45 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
On 8/3/2015 2:19 AM, Max Samukha wrote:
The point is that '+' for string concatenation is no more of
an 'idiot thing'
than '~'.
Sure it is. What if you've got:
T add(T)(T a, T b) { return a + b; }
and some idiot overloaded + for T to be something other than
addition?
That is a general problem with structural typing. Why not assume
that if a type defines 'length', it must be a range? Then call an
idiot everyone who defines it otherwise. I admit that special
treatment of '+' is justified by its long history, but 'idiot
thing' is obviously out of place.
BTW, it happens that '+' does not always have to be commutative:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-ring
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordinal_arithmetic#Addition
