Are associative arrays stable in D?

[Yota]

On Wednesday, 17 July 2013 at 09:48:06 UTC, monarch_dodra wrote:
> I find it disturbing that the built-in property "keys" would 
> dup an entire array, and then copy all the keys into that 
> array, whereas the function "byKeys()" will simply allow you to 
> iterate on the keys.
>
> "keys" is in blatant violation of the "properties emulate 
> members" mind-set.

My sentiments exactly.  I feel it would also be more appropriate 
to name it 'getKeys'.

I get the feeling that a lot of methods in Phobos use @property 
just because they can, and it makes me itch when I come across 
them.  'dup' and 'idup' are big offenders.  Can't wait to get a 
debugger that visualizes data, and tries to fetch both 'dup' 
properties of a multi-megabyte array.  Of course there's no way 
to undo that now without breaking absolutely EVERYONE's code.