On Friday, 30 September 2016 at 01:07:49 UTC, Chris Wright wrote:
The perl example is a line of code buried somewhere that changes the meaning of the rest of the code. Operator overloading is restricted to a specific user-defined type. With such a dramatic difference in the scope of the change, the analogy is useless.
I was responding to someone that wrote: "I also have the presence of mind to recognize that my opinions are not universal, and they are certainly no basis for imposing arbitrary limits upon another person's behavior". I gave an example of what happens when you don't want "arbitrary limits".
Claiming that operator overloading only applies to a specific user-defined type makes it worse. Having it work one way for three types, a different way for four other types, and a third way for yet another type doesn't sound like a minor thing.
But have fun debating design decisions that were made long ago and aren't going to change.
