Feature request: Path append operators for strings

[Andrei Alexandrescu]

On 7/7/13 2:44 PM, Walter Bright wrote:
>> This started with you claiming that Siri is just Eliza with more
>> memory. That's
>> inaccurate to say the least.
>
> I argue it is dead on. I don't see a fundamental difference.

Consider someone at a 1970s level of compiler technology coming to you 
and telling you in all seriousness: "Yeah, I tried your D language. A 
few more keywords and tricks. Compiler supports lines over 80 columns. 
Other than that, it has nothing over Fortran77." Knowing the wealth of 
research and development in programming languages since then, you'd know 
that that's just an ignorant statement and would not even take the time 
to get offended.

Similarly, it would be an ignorant thing to say that Siri is just a 
larger Eliza. There is a world of difference between Eliza's and Siri's 
approaches. In fact the difference is even larger than between 1970s 
compilers and today's ones. For a simple example, in the 1990s NLP has 
definitely departed from rule-based models to statistical models. I 
don't know of a similarly large change in programming language technology.


Andrei