Attribute inference for auto functions?

[Peter Alexander]

On Wednesday, 17 April 2013 at 01:55:54 UTC, Jesse Phillips wrote:
> On Tuesday, 16 April 2013 at 20:21:00 UTC, Peter Alexander 
> wrote:
>> This is the point I have a problem with:
>>
>>>> 2.2. One cannot opt out of nothrow or pure with auto 
>>>> functions.
>>> This argument has one solid answer: don't use auto when the 
>>> need is to specify an attribute pattern explicitly.
>>
>> I find this unacceptable. Thanks to the proliferation of 
>> template code in D, it is often rather difficult to spell out 
>> return types. Indeed, this is part of the original reason for 
>> auto's existence. Denying return type deduction for this use 
>> case is a major inconvenience.
>
> How frequently do you write a non-templated function which 
> returns a complex template type? It isn't something I really 
> think about, but I'm pretty sure if I am returning a complex 
> template type I've already got the function a template.

Often enough. I often find myself returning ranges, which are 
almost invariably complex template types.

And, to be honest, I would just like to use auto without being 
locked into inferred attributes. It just feels wrong that these 
things should be conflated, and I get the feeling we will regret 
this later on when D starts to be used in larger projects.