mixin + CTFE, to big a hammer??

[kris]

BCS wrote:
> I have been thinking about the new functionality added by the code mixin 
> and CTFE features and I'm thinking that they may be "to big a hammer" 
> for may jobs.
> 
> Take my parser generator as an example. I don't think there would be 
> anything to gain by using mixin as the primary method of code 
> generation. Firstly, code generated this way will inherently be harder 
> to read and debug. Also it doesn't do anything that tuple iteration 
> doesn't do just as well.
> 
> I will admit that there may be some things to be gained there by using 
> mixin code (the terminal and action call backs could benefit a lot from 
> this) but these are only minor changes. Also mixin code would be 
> invaluable for some more complicated cases.
> 
> Why is this important? I think that many valuable types of code 
> generation would benefit more by improving the static control structures 
> (foreach/if/etc.) than they would from more mixin like features.
> 
> One feature I would like is a true static foreach, one that can iterate 
> over any built in type arrays or a tuple but does unrolling and per-loop 
> semantic analysis like with tuples. This, in conjunction with CTFE, 
> would make for huge improvements in what can readily be accomplished by 
> moving much of the processing of the code generator input into function 
> and out of templates.
> 
> Basically, I'm saying that while mixin+CTFE is good from many things, it 
> shouldn't be pushed at the expense of the more mundane techniques.
> 
> Just some thoughts, what do you all think?


D mixin, in it's current guise, is about equivalent to crack-cocaine. 
Easily the worst thing that happened to the language, IMO.

Just say no