Why not move cast to the standard library?

[Don]

language_fan wrote:
> Thu, 24 Sep 2009 21:13:48 +0200, downs thusly wrote:
> 
>> language_fan wrote:
>>> Thu, 24 Sep 2009 13:47:21 -0400, Steven Schveighoffer thusly wrote:
>>>
>>>> I actually prefer the compiler to handle the casting versus templates
>>>> to cut down on template instantiation bloat.
>>> I wonder how D scales to 100 MLOC programs as the template
>>> instantiations can be troublesome already in < 1000 LOC programs.
>> We write templates in < 1000 LOC programs to avoid having to write 100
>> MLOC :)
>>
>> Also, let me categorically state: if you're writing 100MLOC programs,
>> you're doing it horribly, horribly wrong.
>>
>> No conceivable program possibly requires that much logic.
> 
> I agree, usually there is *something* wrong with your program if it gets 
> that large. I personally do not consider programs of that size very 
> reliable. But the thing is, you probably know that people fear template 
> instantiations. Not only can they cause really weird linking bugs, the 
> more templates you have, the larger the executables get. Also as dmd does 
> not use garbage collection (yet?) during compilation, the instantiations 
> can easily kill the compilation process.
> 
> Sometimes templates are abused to do what macros were supposed to by used 
> for. I can imagine that templates can cause problems much sooner, you do 
> not even need 1 MLOC of code to do that. Apparently D will never get a 
> powerful macro system since the focus is on other features and templates 
> seem to work just fine on the small scale.

That's not the reason.
A bit of history: A macro system was planned for D2, and 'macro' was 
made a reserved word. But in discussions at the end of the first D 
conference, I demonstrated that the combination of CTFE + string mixins, 
even in D1, was dramatically more powerful than the proposed macros. It 
became clear that we didn't have a macro design that was anywhere near 
powerful enough, and macros were postponed to D3. We don't know how they 
should work.
By all means make a proposal.