More on semantics of opPow: return type

[bearophile]

Joel C. Salomon:
> Then we may have to convince Walter not to eliminate the extra
> comparison operators.

They don't add that much to the language, while they are not easy to remember and add complexity. So I think that even serious numeric programmers will not miss them too much.

But I don't perform that kind of computations all the time, so I can't know, I'm just guessing. If those operators will be needed we can add them back later!

This shows what I think is an important design mistake done by D devs: you can't predict all possible usages of a language. So adding everything into it from the beginning is not positive. Serious numerical programmers will develop in D2 if D2 turns out to be fit for such purposes and if D2 is lucky, but it's after that moment and thanks to their work that we'll be able to know what things to add to D2 to help those people in their work. Several details in a language design must come from and after practical need, they can't come from up-front design. Reality is just too much complex for too much up-front design.

Bye,
bearophile