An important potential change to the language: transitory ref

[Andrei Alexandrescu]

On 03/20/2010 02:36 AM, Don wrote:
> Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>> My response to the above issue is two-pronged:
>>
>> (a) For List a class would be an alternative
>> (b) To work with pointers to structs use static member functions and
>> pointers instead of methods and references
>
> That would prohibit their use in safe D, right?

That is correct. Note that things like &this are also forbidden in safe 
D. Practically safety is not affected one way or another.

> Although I can see the appeal of this idea, it seems very experimental.
> I fear it might have unexpected consequences. So it would need quite
> extensive testing. Do we have enough time to do that?

It is not urgent to introduce this restriction.


Andrei