I see that this is not going to happen for D2 but as a debate for
a future D3 (and please just ignore my post if you find this in
some way exasperating, I am interested but do not mean to cause
friction):
Just as a question about the existing syntax as you listed
combinations to learn as a negative:
auto name = initializer;
const name = initializer;
immutable name = initializer;
shared name = initializer;
enum name = initializer;
After the first aren't these all just short hand for "const auto
name = init" etc with the given keyword? If your argument is that
additional cases are bad then this is a case for what appears to
be syntactic reasons. It feels as if initialization should be
more explicit than keyword varname. As a beginner I certainly
found that odder than :=.
Syntax confusion with other languages is not a strong argument,
well at least as the confusion is with unrelated languages.
Fortran uses /= for not equal, Matlab uses ~=, while that is D's
append to self.
Terse elegance is important in making languages quick to take in
and work with, it's not an argument of new function but that is
not the only reason to include features, convenience is a good
reason when there is no ambiguity.
