On Friday, 24 August 2018 at 10:58:29 UTC, aliak wrote:
On Friday, 24 August 2018 at 06:41:35 UTC, Jonathan Marler
wrote:
Ever since I read
https://dlang.org/blog/2017/02/13/a-new-import-idiom/ I've
very much enjoyed using the new `from` template. It unlocks
new idioms in D and have been so useful that I thought it
might be a good addition to the core language. I've found
that having it in a different place in each project and always
having to remember to import it makes it much less ubiquitous
for me.
One idea is we could add this template to `object.d`. This
would allow it to be used from any module that uses druntime
without having to import it first. The template itself is
also very friendly to "bloat" because it only has a single
input parameter which is just a string, extremely easy to
memoize. Also, unless it is instantiated, adding it to
object.d will have virtually no overhead (just a few AST nodes
which would dwarfed by what's already in object.d). It would
also be very easy to add, a single PR with 4 lines of code to
druntime and we're done.
Of course, if we don't want to encourage use of the `from`
template then this is not what we'd want. Does anyone have
any data/experience with from? All I know is my own usage so
feel free to chime in with yours.
One of the first things I do after a dub init is create a file
called internal.d with the from template in it. My only gripe
about this template is it's "autocompletion-able-ness" in IDEs
and if that can be handled.
I would not want it globally imported though, "from" is quite
popular as an identifier and D doesn't let you use keywords as
identifiers.
Cheers,
- Ali
Good to know others are using it. Of course making it a core
part of the language would mean that IDEs would be free to add
support for it, whether it was added to `object.d` or with some
other means such as a new syntax, i.e.
(import std.stdio).writefln(...)
I didn't quite understand your last point. Adding `from` to
`object.d` wouldn't make it a keyword, it would still be an
identifier. And you could still use it as an identifier in your
own code.
