Tuple/TypeTuple etc.

[bearophile]

Wyatt:

> I don't like the "t".

I know. So far we haven't found a syntax that is technically 
acceptable (this means backwards compatible, etc), not too much 
onerous in some ways, and much better than t{} (but of course 
syntax is a bit subjective, so others can find other syntaxes 
acceptable. In such cases Python developer team discusses, they 
vote one or more times, and at the end the benevolent Python 
dictator Guido V. Rossum reads the discussions and vote results 
and expresses the final decision, his words are more or less 
final).
It's short, clear, has a precedent with q{}. I don't like it a 
lot, but it's way better than not having language support for 
tuples.


> I'd prefer just using parentheses, but I think there were 
> readability problems that caused the DIP to end up with:

More than just readability problems. They were discussed when 
Kenji presented the DIP 32 in this forum. Timon found a 
significant problem with the {} syntax.


>> "Basic () syntax, perhaps the cleanest, but can't be used:"
> Though there's nothing else written about that.

I have added those parts and comparisons in the DIP :-)
http://wiki.dlang.org/?title=DIP32&action=history

If you think some comments are missing feel free to add them, 
it's a Wiki.

----------------------

Jonathan M Davis:

> Since the built-in tuples / std.typetuple.TypeTuple and 
> std.typecons.Tuple
> are fundamentally different, I don't see how you could possibly 
> combine the two
> in a single syntax. You'd need different syntaxes for each one.

You are right, they are different things, sorry.
But let's hypothesize there is only one syntax for both of them. 
What bad things are going to happen? Can't the compiler infer by 
itself what of the two kinds you want to use?

Bye,
bearophile