On Mon, 29 Nov 2010 16:02:18 -0500, Walter Bright
<newshou...@digitalmars.com> wrote:
Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
Syntax is the main issue in implementing this feature. Due to the
implicit nature of reference semantics for classes, there was no syntax
to distinguish between the head and the tail when qualifying.
FWIW I just thought of this syntax. It might work but it's not
intuitive:
const()C tailConst;
Syntax was not the issue. Back when we tried hard to make this work,
there were many syntaxes proposed for it. The issue is the semantic
conflation between a reference and what it refers to.
Syntax is the issue. You can do a tail-const pointer without problems
because the syntax is intuitive. It can be done, it just needs syntax to
do it. Note that in D, class references are rebindable. ref references
are not, we are not talking about ref references, we are talking about
rebindable references, there is definitely a separation between the
reference and the data, it's just invisible.
Because we tried hard and failed != it's impossible.
-Steve
