shouting versus dotting

[Simen Kjaeraas]

On Wed, 08 Oct 2008 22:02:18 +0200, Simen Kjaeraas  
<simen.kjaras at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Mon, 06 Oct 2008 12:39:29 +0200, Benji Smith  
> <dlanguage at benjismith.net> wrote:
>
>> Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>>> One morning I woke up with the sudden realization of what the problem  
>>> was: the shouting.
>>
>> Here's my (nutty) opinion:
>>
>> Neither the "!" nor the "." really want to be there. I think the  
>> language really *wants* to be using a bare set of parens for templates.  
>> Because the language actually wants templates and functions to converge.
>>
>> Instead of a special-case syntax for templates, and a set of special  
>> rules for CTFE, and a whole set of parallel "static" statements (if,  
>> else, foreach) and a special compile-type-only type construct (tuples),  
>> just let D be D, either at runtime or compile type.
>>
>> If a function could return a Type, and if that type could be used in a  
>> Type Constructor, then you'd have all the magic template sauce you'd  
>> need, and templates could happily converge themselves with regular  
>> functions.
>>
>> Hey! I told you it was going to be nutty!!!
>>
>> <g>
>>
>> --benji
>
> That would only work for templated functions, though. What about  
> templated types?
>

Forget I ever let my ass do the thinking. I'd really like to see how this  
would look, but I feel it'd make for uglier syntax.

-- 
Simen