The Status of Const

[Steven Schveighoffer]

On Thu, 12 Aug 2010 22:23:30 -0400, Adam Ruppe <destructionator at gmail.com>  
wrote:

> On the subject of rebindable, what about:
>
> const Object o; // not rebindable, the whole thing is set once and const
> const(Object) o; // the Object is const, but the reference is not.
>
> So, everything is rebindable unless the declaration has a
> const/immutable on the outside.
>
> int a; // rebindable (obviously)
> const(int) a; // the int never changes... but the variable a might.
> Meaningless for a value type, but makes sense for a reference type
> const int a; // the whole thing is set once and never changes. The
> const applies to the variable a itself, but the transitive property
> propagates it down to the int type too.

This was tried in an early version of D2 const.  It is too confusing.  For  
const(int) to be modifiable is unacceptable.  I know it looks appealing,  
but trust me, you have about as much chance of convincing Walter to  
revisit this idea as you have of walking on water.

-Steve