shouting versus dotting

[Andrei Alexandrescu]

Don wrote:
> Bill Baxter wrote:
>> On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 2:25 AM, superdan <super at dan.org> wrote:
>>> Bill Baxter Wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 11:58 PM, Steven Schveighoffer
>>>> <schveiguy at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>>> "Ary Borenszweig" wrote
>>>>> I still vote to keep ! as it's the easiest solution, and I never 
>>>>> have found
>>>>> it annoying ;)
>>>> Yeh, me too.
>>>>
>>>> The @ (and #) also take up too much width in a small mono-space font
>>>> like the Proggy font I use.  And so they run into the previous and
>>>> following chars making them less readable.   ! is nice and thin so it
>>>> doesn't have that problem.
>>>>
>>>> { } vs ( ) is also a fairly subtle distinction in a small font.
>>>> Usually the context and usage is different enough that that doesn't
>>>> matter.   But of course you may just tell me I should change my font
>>>> in that case.
>>> spoken like a true prodigy. yeah. change yer font.
>>
>> Well, I think it's more a matter of the size than the particular font,
>> though.  So the remedy would probably be to switch to a font that
>> takes up more screen real-estate, meaning I'll get fewer lines of D to
>> the page.
>>
>> But there *is* a difference between { and ( even with Proggy at 6x10
>> -- 2 pixels are shifted one position.  I suppose it's not any more
>> subtle than the difference between . and , which is seen everywhere.
>> I'm sure I could get used to it if it's what the D community thinks is
>> best.   Anyway I think foo{} is more readable than foo.().
>>
>>> thing is that's important. i don't mind !() much myself. like a mole 
>>> on an otherwise fine piece of ass. got used to it. but like u i also 
>>> remember in the beginning i was like, what's wrong with walt did he 
>>> run out of ideas or what.
>>>
>>> to some1 coming anew to d stuff like what!(the!(hell!())) is freakin' 
>>> weird. no two ways about it. you just keep starin' at that mole like 
>>> austin powers. if there's a way to get rid of it then whynot. helps 
>>> attract newcomerz eh.
>>
>> I thought it was bizarre till I read the justification here
>>    http://www.digitalmars.com/d/1.0/templates-revisited.html.
>> Then  I thought, OK.  Not a bad idea.  It's better than parsing
>> ambiguities, and being forced to insert spaces between punctuation to
>> avoid them.
>>
>> But I agree that as an utter newbie to D, foo{bar} would probably have
>> seemed more elegant and obvious as a template syntax than re-purposing
>> the unary NOT operator.  The newbie's response to "foo{bar} is a
>> template instantiation" would probably be "ok, sure." instead of
>> "Why??"
>>
>> Still it seems like a big bike shed issue.  And it's bizarre coming
>> from the guy who's usually the first one to call "bike shed" anytime
>> anyone else makes a suggestion to improve aesthetics.
> 
> I agree with all these. There's a lot of other things I wish Andrei were 
> working on instead.

I am, I am. Soon as Walter fixes a few bugs, I'll rewrite std.algorithm 
(and add some more to it) in terms of ranges. Map and reduce will likely 
be lazyfied. Also std.random will define ranges instead of the current 
ad-hoc interface that works but is not integrated with anything in 
particular. But bear with me; I have a paper deadline staring me in the 
face and a thesis to finish.

> I'd hope for a colossal benefit, from something which would break almost 
> all my code...

Not going to break anything, as I explained.

> (BTW Putting template parameters inside normal parens would be an 
> adequate benefit).

I agree.


Andrei