yank unary '+'?

[Don]

Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> Walter Bright wrote:
>> Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>>> Walter Bright wrote:
>>>> Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>>>>> Is there any good use of unary +? As an aside, Perl programs do use 
>>>>> it occasionally for syntactic disambiguation :o).
>>>>
>>>> An internet search reveals:
>>>>
>>>> 1. symmetry
>>>>
>>>> 2. compatibility with C and many other languages that use it
>>>>
>>>> 3. used with operator overloading to convert a user defined type to 
>>>> its preferred arithmetic representation (a cast can't know what the 
>>>> 'preferred' type is)
>>>>
>>>> 4. to create DSL languages, like Spirit, as Kenny points out
>>>>
>>>> 5. to coerce default integral promotion rules (again, cast(int) 
>>>> won't always produce the same result)
>>>>
>>>> 6. to visually emphasize that a literal is positive
>>>>
>>>> I say leave it in.
>>>
>>> I am completely underwhelmed by 1-6 and have strong arguments against 
>>> each, but "frankly, my dear" I have bigger problems than that. I have 
>>> exactly zero valid reasons I could mention in TDPL, and that's my 
>>> litmus test. I find the operator utterly useless. If '+' stays in, 
>>> then call it horsetrading but the occasionally useful '^^=' must also 
>>> be in.
>>
>> Think of it like the "bool" operator overload. bool gives a direct way 
>> for user defined times to be tested for if statements, etc.
> 
> If I think of it that way, that doesn't look too good. The bool operator 
> overload has been an unqualified and admitted failure for C++. The hacks 
> used to avoid that failure are very ingenious; none was within the realm 
> of what the language had planned or intended.
> 
>> Similarly, U+ gives a direct way for user defined types to be 
>> converted to their most desired arithmetic type.
> 
> Code that uses +a to convert a to another type? I'd consider that worse 
> than a hack and worse than incompetent - it's downright malicious.
> 
> Andrei

And if Andrei has never heard of it, we can be pretty sure that very few 
programmmers would understand code that uses it.

It's really looking as though U+ is only for literals and for operator 
abuse.