Consistency, Templates, Constructors, and D3

[David Piepgrass]

On Monday, 27 August 2012 at 20:22:47 UTC, Era Scarecrow wrote:
> On Monday, 27 August 2012 at 14:53:57 UTC, F i L wrote:
>> in C#, you use 'new Type()' for both classes and structs, and 
>> it works fine. In fact, it has some benefit with generic 
>> programming. Plus, it's impossible to completely get away from 
>> having to understand the type, even in C++/D today, because we 
>> can always make factory functions:
>
>  I'm sure in C# that all structs and classes are heap allocated 
> (It takes after C++ very likely) that's the simplest way to do 
> it. You can do that in C++ as well, but other than having to 
> declare it a pointer first. In C++ they made structs 'classes 
> that are public by default' by it's definition I believe. 
> Considering how C++ is set up that makes perfect sense.

You're mistaken as FiL pointed out. "new" is simply not a heap 
allocation operator in C#, it is a creation operator. Structs in 
C# are allocated on the stack or embedded in another object (on 
the stack or on the heap). "new X()" creates a new value of type 
X, which could be a struct on the stack or a class on the heap.

I like the way C# works in this regard because the way X is 
allocated is an implementation detail that is hidden from 
clients. If the type X is immutable, then I can freely change it 
from struct to class or vice versa without affecting clients that 
use X. (Mind you if X is mutable, the difference is visible to 
clients since x1 = x2 copies X itself, not a reference to X.)

Plus as mentioned, generic code can use "new T()" without caring 
what kind of type T is.