free func "front" is not picked up as a candidate when doing range.front(...)

[Jonathan M Davis]

On Wednesday, February 07, 2018 20:17:54 aliak via Digitalmars-d-learn 
wrote:
> On Wednesday, 7 February 2018 at 20:08:10 UTC, Paul Backus wrote:
> > You can only call a function with UFCS syntax if the object
> > you're calling it with does not have a member with the same
> > name as the function. Both iota's `Result` type and
> > `FilterResult` have properties named "front", so you can't call
> > your front function on them using UFCS syntax.
>
> ahhh... bummer.
>
> Do you know if it is a limitation that is yet to be implemented
> or one that will not (cannot?) be implemented and if so what the
> reason is?

It would be a disaster if free functions could override member functions.
For starters, it would be impossible to call the member function if that
were allowed, whereas you can always call a free function by not using UFCS.
And in general, it's far more desirable to have member function functions
override free functions, because then you can do stuff like have have a
range override find if it can provide a more efficient implementation than
std.algorithm.find.

If you want to override what a member function is doing, then you need to
wrap the object in a new type.

- Jonathan M Davis