Discussion on Go and D

[Andrej Mitrovic]

On 4/9/12, Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail at erdani.org> wrote:
> and pass-by-alias

Speaking of alias, one killer feature would be to enable using alias
for expressions. E.g.:

struct Window { struct Point { int x, y; } Point point; }
void test() {
    Window window;
    alias window.point.x x;
    // use 'x' here which is really window.point.x
}

It makes it simpler to manipulate nested structs and their fields by
reference without involving pointers or using with statements. AFAIK
C++ can use references for this purpose (ala &int x =
window.point.x;), but I guess this isn't very efficient unless the
compiler can optimize it.

Besides myself I've also seen other people request it (I think Nick S.
wanted the feature).