typedef: what's it good for?

[grauzone]

Walter Bright wrote:
> When I originally worked out ideas for D, there were many requests from 
> the C and C++ community for a 'strong' typedef, and so I put one in D. I 
> didn't think about it too much, just assumed that it was a good idea.
> 
> Now I'm not so sure. Maybe it should be removed for D2.
> 
> Does anyone use typedef's?
> 
> What do you use them for?
> 
> Do you need them?

One _actual_ use of typeof is to force a different array initializer 
(for performance reasons):

typedef int Foo = 1;

Foo[] arr;
arr.length = 567;
//with int[] arr, you now had to do arr[] = 1;

Also, you can easily define new exception classes:

//no need to write a ctor which just calls the super ctor
typedef Exception MyException;

But these are just symptoms of other problems of the language.

Can typedef be the same as alias, if the current functionality goes?