package and virtual

[Alex Rønne Petersen]

On 01-03-2012 02:27, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
> On Wednesday, February 29, 2012 17:05:19 H. S. Teoh wrote:
>> On Wed, Feb 29, 2012 at 07:53:54PM -0500, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
>>> package functions are currenly non-virtual.
>>>
>>> The spec claims that "all non-sta­tic non-pri­vate non-tem­plate mem­ber
>>> func­ tions are vir­tual," which would mean that package is supposed to
>>> be virtual. But from what I recall, the plan is to leave package as
>>> non-virtual. So, is that indeed the case and the spec needs to be fixed,
>>> or is package going to be made virtual at some point?
>>
>> [...]
>>
>> Virtual package functions would be interesting in theory... but I doubt
>> there's much practical use for such things. Will packages have an
>> inheritance hierarchy now?
>
> The point of allowing virtual package functions would be to allow derived
> classes within a package to override the function but disallow it for derived
> classes outside of the package. It has nothing to do with adding an
> "inheritance hierarchy" to packages (I'm not even sure what you mean be that).
> There are similar arguments for making private virtual.
>
> Personally, I'm absolutely fine with package being non-virtual. I'm just trying
> to verify that I'm correct in my understanding that the plan is to leave it
> non-virtual rather than to make dmd match what the spec currently says and
> make package virtual.
>
> - Jonathan M Davis

I think making package functions non-virtual is a bad idea. Why is the 
language trying to make some arbitrary decision for the programmer 
without any real reason?

(And please don't say "performance"; then I'll have to whip out the good 
old "virtual by default is stupid"...)

-- 
- Alex