Why typedef's shouldn't have been removed :(

[Chris Cain]

On Sunday, 6 May 2012 at 14:58:53 UTC, Mehrdad wrote:
> Well, it's not *quite* like I was saying "I shouldn't have to 
> give a reason".
> Rather, I was saying that, when you're doing reflection, you 
> should have access to all information, even if it looks useless.

I understand that, I was just stating that you shouldn't start
off your post by saying "even if I couldn't tell you a reason"
and explained why that's generally a bad way to start.

> I *wasn't* saying my issue was above the bug fixes... I'm not 
> sure where you got that impression. I was just saying it needs 
> to be somewhere in the queue.

I was just stating that the effort to implement the changes you
want has to come from somewhere. There's no such thing as a free
lunch. To do anything, you have to give something else up. This
is standard "opportunity cost". So, by saying you want this done,
you've implicitly said that it's more important than something
else... to figure out where in the queue it needs to go requires
reasons. To even put it in the queue requires reasons too
(because otherwise the list would become completely unmanageable
at some point). I'm not even the person you have to convince, but
I would think it would help you to outline the reasons why things
need to be changed and the benefits. And it seems you have to the
best of your ability, so hopefully that'll get your request
noticed by someone else.

> (1) I'm saying function(size_t) and function(uint) are 
> different functions, and people are telling me that's silly, 
> who cares about the type anyway. That's not an 'alternative'.

I'm not sure if people are really saying that's silly... It's
more like where in your code does it matter so that we can
suggest alternatives. If we don't know what you're trying to do,
we can't actually suggest the 'alternative' we're talking about.
Our alternative isn't to call it silly, we're trying to get where
you're coming from (and we couldn't see a reason why you need it
because _you hadn't told us yet_). We're just trying to 
communicate here, we're not trying to belittle you or your ideas.

You said you needed a typedef to do x, we suggest alternative
that does x. Then you say well, what about y and we don't have an
answer for y, but I'm trying to get you going by providing you a
different way of looking at the problem so that y doesn't even
matter. But without knowing the problem, I certainly can't offer
a solution...


I really wanted to help you get whatever you want done in D, but
apparently I can't (or at least, if I could, I can't say I want
to enough to keep trying to discover what you're trying to do),
so all I can do is wish you good luck.