string is immutable(char)[]
I rarely *ever* need an immutable string. What I usually need is
const(char)[]. I'd say 99%+ of the time I need only a const string.
This is quite irritating because "string" is the most convenient and
intuitive thing to type. I often get into situations where I've written
a function that takes a string, and then I can't call it because all I
have is a char[]. I could copy the char[] into a new string, but that's
expensive, and I'd rather I could just call the function.
I think it's telling that most Phobos functions use 'const(char)[]' or
'in char[]' instead of 'string' for their arguments. The ones that use
'string' are usually using it unnecessarily and should be fixed to use
const(char)[].
In an ideal world I'd much prefer if string was an alias for
const(char)[], but string literals were immutable(char)[]. It would
require a little more effort when dealing with concurrency, but that's a
price I would be willing to pay to make the string alias useful in
function parameters.
