The Status of Const

[Jonathan M Davis]

On Thursday 12 August 2010 19:09:51 Michel Fortin wrote:
> On 2010-08-12 18:56:50 -0400, dsimcha <dsimcha at yahoo.com> said:
> > How can these limitations be worked around and/or fixed?
> 
> Unsatisfaction about Rebindable seems pretty generalized.
> 
> Here's an idea for a solution. Basically the problem is only in the
> syntax, where the reference is implicitly part of the object's type and
> thus impossible to put outside from the type modifier. An easy solution
> would be to add an explicit reference marker, but this would change the
> syntax for existing code, and I have to admit the current syntax is
> nice (up until you try to add a modifier). But we could make the
> reference marker optional, like this:
> 
> 	Object o; // implicitly a reference
> 	Object ref o; // explicit reference marker
> 
> Both would be allowed and equivalent. While the first form is nicer to
> the eye, the second makes it easy to apply a type modifier while
> excluding the reference:
> 
> 	const(Object)ref o;
> 	shared(Object)ref o;

Now, _that_ seems like a good idea. It doesn't even require a new keyword. It's 
also quite clear and understandable. It would be a big improvement I think. 
There may be downsides of some kind, but I can't think of any. Unless someone 
can come up with a reason _not_ to do this, it seems to me like it's a really 
good idea.

- Jonathan M Davis


P.S. I believe that the word that you were looking for was dissatisfaction, not 
unsatisfaction (which isn't a real word).