Why is std.algorithm so complicated to use?

[Jacob Carlborg]

On 2012-07-10 09:09, Jonathan M Davis wrote:

> It's a complete failure because not every range works with every range-based
> function? We have isInputRange, isForwardRange, isRandomAccessRange,
> hasSlicing, etc. for a reason. Different ranges have different capabilities, and
> different algorithms generate different types of ranges based on what they do.
> For instance, filter cannot possibly have slicing, because it's on O(n)
> operation to determine which elements match the predicate. You have to iterate
> through _all_ of the elements. Rather than doing that (and therefore not
> working with infinite ranges and being inefficient with non-infinite ranges), it's
> lazy, and if you _do_ want to process all of the elements to know filter's
> length and therefore make it slicable, you generate a new range from it -
> generally with std.array.array. map is in the same boat. It has to generate
> new range type, and the choice is between being lazy and efficient (and
> therefore require a call to array) or being inefficient and calling array
> internally.

Well, I haven't been able to use a single function from std.algorithm 
without adding a lot of calls to "array" or "to!(string)". I think the 
things I'm trying to do seems trivial and quite common. I'm I overrating 
std.algorithm or does it not fit my needs?

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg