DIP 1015--Deprecation of Implicit Conversion of Int. & Char. Literals to bool--Formal Assement

[NoMoreBugs]

On Monday, 12 November 2018 at 10:05:09 UTC, Jonathan M Davis 
wrote:
>
> *sigh* Well, I guess that's the core issue right there. A lot 
> of us would strongly disagree with the idea that bool is an 
> integral type and consider code that treats it as such as 
> inviting bugs. We _want_ bool to be considered as being 
> completely distinct from integer types. The fact that you can 
> ever pass 0 or 1 to a function that accepts bool without a cast 
> is a problem in and of itself. But it doesn't really surprise 
> me that Walter doesn't agree on that point, since he's never 
> agreed on that point, though I was hoping that this DIP was 
> convincing enough, and its failure is certainly disappointing.
>
> - Jonathan M Davis

Well, I think the DIP was too narrow in its thinking - by 
restricting itself to bool.

There is a bigger picture, which is more important.

Fact 1 - Implicit conversions are nothing more than a weakening 
of type safety.

Fact 2 - A weakening of type safety can (and often does) 
contribute to bugs.

If anyone wants to dispute facts 1 and 2, please go ahead.

Ideally, a 'modern' programming language would have addressed 
these two facts already.

(i.e Rust).

Unfortunately, D is very much tied to its C/C++ heritage, so 
'modernizing' can be painful.

D still can still modernize though, without breaking backward 
compatibility, by providing 'an option' for the programmer to 
explicitly declare their desire for greater type safety - and not 
just with bools.

Fact 3 - Everyone will benefit from greater type safety
          (disputable - at least for those that prefer convenience 
over correctness).

There is just no reason that I can see, why any modern 
programming language should allow my bool to be implicitly 
converted to a char, int, short, byte, long, double, 
float.....and god knows what else...and certainly not without 
some warning.

Additionally, it really troubles me to see a programming language 
wanting to strut itself on the worlds stage, that can (and worst, 
just will) do things like that - no warning, no option to prevent 
it.