std.xml should just go

[Andrej Mitrovic]

On 2/4/11, spir <denis.spir at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> About that, I would love a tutorial about eponymous templates starting with
> their /purpose/ (why does this feature even exist? what does it /mean/? what
> does it compare/oppose to? why is one supposed to need/enjoy it? how is it
> supposed to help & make code better mirror model?) Same for alias template
> params. Same for a rather long list of features, probably.
>

But both of these are already explained in the manual:
http://www.digitalmars.com/d/2.0/template.html (search for Implicit
Template Properties)
http://www.digitalmars.com/d/2.0/template.html (search for Template
Alias Parameters)

Granted, eponymous templates aren't explained in much detail on that page.
As for explaining how they work together, I did write that short
template tutorial
(http://prowiki.org/wiki4d/wiki.cgi?D__Tutorial/D2Templates), but
you've already seen that. :)

However, I do not think we should write tutorials on single features
alone. I've read a bunch of books that explain the language in
feature-by-feature basis, but neglect to tie everything together. For
example, "Learning Python" is this 1200 page book about Python 3,
explaining the language feature by feature but never really discussing
the language as a whole. It's only good as a reference, which
ironically defeats the book's title. OTOH "Dive into Python 3"
gradually introduces you to more features of the language, but always
has code examples where you can see multiple features of the language
being used. (IIRC there were string processing examples which used
regex, multiple modules, and unittests all at once).

Having a perspective on how all features tie together is crucial to
understanding the purpose of individual features themselves. In my
opinion!