Constructing text with astericks

[Basile B.]

On Wednesday, 30 May 2018 at 22:57:06 UTC, aberba wrote:
> I've been given a challenge to write texts using asterisks to 
> form the letters. D happen to have an unlimited amount of 
> idioms yet i'm out out ideas as to the simplest approach. Task 
> is to basically take a piece of text and write them as 
> asterisks to the console.
>
> *****  *
> *      *
> *****  *
>     *  *
> *****  *
>
> First solution I found was to create a class for each 
> letter...like new A(), new B() and implement the logic withing 
> each class. This doesn't scale and i'll have to write about 24 
> or more classes.
>
> Another complex but "makes sense" solution will be to use a 
> GRID system like old digital watches but i'll need a more 
> complex grid to draw complex letters using a dictionary of 
> REPOPULATED indexes of asterisk for each word. First use the 
> length of the string to compute the grid size and iterate over 
> each character to indentify the dictionary of a letter's 
> indexes to use:
>
> *****
> *******
> **   **
> *******
> **  ***
> **   ***  (an R using a more complex Grid)
>
>
> How will you approach this problem in D idiomatically?

I'd use an ascii art approach:

- Programatically make bitmaps with each letter rendered using a 
monospaced font.
- use higher order functions to make 2d arrays of ' ' and '*'