Fully dynamic d by opDotExp overloading

[Andrei Alexandrescu]

Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
> On Fri, 17 Apr 2009 15:55:43 -0400, Andrei Alexandrescu 
> <SeeWebsiteForEmail at erdani.org> wrote:
> 
>> Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>>> "Yigal Chripun" <yigal100 at gmail.com> wrote in message 
>>> news:gsam1p$1ut7$1 at digitalmars.com...
>>>> On 17/04/2009 21:58, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
>>>>
>>>> btw, I'm not trying to convince you that dynamic typing is necessary 
>>>> always a better solution. What I'm saying is that I agree with 
>>>> Andrei - we need to be open minded and have as many useful tools as 
>>>> possible in our programmer toolbox. The important thing is to choose 
>>>> the right tool for the job.
>>>>
>>>  Typically, yes, having "as many useful tools as possible in our 
>>> programmer toolbox" is great. But with opDotExp, that's not the whole 
>>> story. What opDotExp is, is a tool of only occasional use that 
>>> provides only a small benefit, *and* ends up destroying a much more 
>>> important tool: compile-time checking on a class's members.
>>
>> s/on a class's members/on the members of the class that actively chose 
>> that/
> 
> Sure, how do you know that the class actively chose it, or did not 
> actively choose it, or will *never* actively choose it simply by looking 
> at the statement?

You shouldn't worry about it as much as you shouldn't when you iterate a 
built-in array vs. a user-defined range.

> The problem with me is that it doesn't *look* different.

I understand how it could be a problem. The thing is, it is also an 
advantage.

>  If there was 
> some way to denote "call dynamic method" instead of "call static method" 
> or some way to denote "has dynamic methods", then I'd have no problem 
> with it.  Even if you were forced to derive from a special base type in 
> order to use dynamic methods, I wouldn't mind that.

Would you like ranges that work very different from built-in arrays, and 
everybody to special-case around that?

By the way, D's AAs suck partly because they aren't like anything. I 
*really* hate the way D does AAs.


Andrei