On 12/28/11 12:46 PM, Walter Bright wrote:
On 12/28/2011 10:35 AM, Peter Alexander wrote:
On 28/12/11 6:15 PM, Walter Bright wrote:
If such a change is made, then people will use const string when they
mean immutable, and the values underneath are not guaranteed to be
consistent.
Then people should learn what const and immutable mean!
I don't think it's fair to dismiss my suggestion on the grounds that
people
don't understand the language.
People do what is convenient, and as endless experience shows, doing the
right thing should be easier than doing the wrong thing. If you present
people with a choice:
#1: string s;
#2: immutable(char)[] s;
sure as the sun rises, they will type the former, and it will be subtly
incorrect if string is const(char)[].
Telling people they should know better and pick #2 instead is a strategy
that never works very well - not for programming, nor any other endeavor.
Yes. Contrary to the OP, I don't think it's fair to dismiss a valid
concern by framing it as a user education issue. It's has very often
been aired in the olden days of C++, and never in a winning argument.
(Right off the bat - auto_ptr.)
Andrei
