opPow, opDollar

[Lars T. Kyllingstad]

Walter Bright wrote:
> Don wrote:
>> A little while ago I said I'd create a patch for ^^ as an 
>> exponentiation. A couple of people had requested that I make a post to 
>> the ng so they'd know when it happens. Here it is.
>>
>> This is opPow(),  x ^^ y
>>
>> http://d.puremagic.com/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=3481

AWESOME! Thanks a lot, Don! I've been hoping for this since I started 
using D.


Walter Bright wrote:
> I don't understand the rationale for an exponentiation operator. It 
> isn't optimization, because pow() could become an intrinsic that the 
> compiler knows about. pow() is well known, ^^ isn't. (Fortran uses **)

I don't understand the rationale for a concatenation operator. It isn't 
optimization, because strcat() could become an intrinsic that the 
compiler knows about. strcat() is well known, ~ isn't. (Java uses +)

I'm not trying to be rude, I'm just trying to illustrate that the first 
point doesn't make a good case against an exponentiation operator. I can 
only speak for myself, but I use exponentiation a lot. I mostly write 
numerical code, and as I understand it, I'm not the only one in the 
community doing so.

Being able to overload the exponentiation operator also makes a lot of 
sense. Matrices and BigInts are the first things that come to mind.

-Lars