Statically forbid string ~ size_t ?

[Nick Sabalausky]

"bearophile" <bearophileHUGS at lycos.com> wrote in message 
news:j77juk$157p$1 at digitalmars.com...
> This comes from a thread in D.learn.
>
> This is a small Python2 program:
>
>
> from sys import argv
> x = len(argv)
> s = "hello"
> s += x
> print s
>
>
> Python is strongly typed so it refuses to append an integer number to a 
> string:
>
> Traceback (most recent call last):
>  File "...\test.py", line 4, in <module>
>    s += x
> TypeError: cannot concatenate 'str' and 'int' objects
>
>
> In Java if you append an integer number to a string the integer number 
> gets first converted to a string:
>
>
> class Main {
>    public static void main(String[] args) {
>        int x = args.length;
>        String s = "hello";
>        s += x;
>        System.out.println(s);
>    }
> }
>
>
> That Java code outputs:
>
> hello0
>
>
> Both Java and Python are far more commonly known than D, and they shape 
> programmers expectations a bit.
>
> This D2 code compiles and runs with DMD 2.056head:
>
>
> void main(string[] args) {
>    int x = args.length;
>    string s = "hello";
>    s ~= x;
> }
>
>
>
> (In this case Python2 is typed more strongly than D.)
>
> I think that int+char is acceptable in D, but string~size_t is not good. I 
> think this is bug prone (especially given the expectations of programmers 
> coming from other languages). So I suggest to statically disallow 
> string~size_t. string~char, string~dchar, and string~string are of course 
> OK.
>
> So far I have written no enhancement request/bug report on this because I 
> am not so sure...
>

Yea, the implicit character-number conversions are an irritating artifact of 
C's overly-weak typing. I wish we'd get rid of them.