Why is std.algorithm so complicated to use?

[Andrei Alexandrescu]

On 7/10/12 12:38 PM, Jacob Carlborg wrote:
> Can't "map" and "filter" return a random-access range if that's what
> they receive?

(replied to by others)

>> Now I understand if you come from a place where there's no concern over
>> hidden allocations and extra work for the benefit of convenience, you
>> may find std.algorithm less easy to work with. But drawing the
>> conclusion that std.algorithm is badly designed or gratuitously
>> difficult to use would be a mistake. I opine I can recognize a good vs.
>> bad design even when it's mine, and in my opinion std.algorithm is a
>> good design and that most of your opposing impressions derive from a
>> misunderstanding of its charter.
>
> I don't think I've struggled as much with any other API I've used. In
> many cases I had to resort to foreach-loops because that was more
> convenient than using std.algorithm.

That's fine. I don't see std.algorithm as a competitor against simple 
loops, but instead of work that would be very verbose and difficult to 
do with loops. I mean I clearly recall at a point I wanted to define a 
forAll algorithm, but then I was like, "people can use foreach for that".

Andrei