What features of D are you using now which you thought you'd never goint to use?

[monarch_dodra]

On Tuesday, 25 June 2013 at 22:39:07 UTC, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
> On Wednesday, June 26, 2013 00:11:29 Timon Gehr wrote:
>> On 06/25/2013 10:37 PM, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
>> > On Tuesday, June 25, 2013 21:42:17 Timon Gehr wrote:
>> >> Take will check the wrapped range's 'empty' repeatedly. 
>> >> takeExactly does
>> >> not need to do that at all.
>> > 
>> > It only does that with assertions. ...
>> 
>> https://github.com/D-Programming-Language/phobos/blob/master/std/range.d#L26
>> 48
>
> Clearly, I missed that. Well, it is true that takeExactly 
> avoids calling empty
> on the range that it's wrapping in its own empty function, but 
> it's pretty
> rare that a wrapper range doesn't call the wrapped empty in its 
> own empty
> function. So, I'd tend to view that as on optimization on 
> takeExactly's part
> rather than a deficiency on take's part.
>
> Regardless, it's definitely more efficient to use takeExactly 
> when you can. The
> _only_ benefit to take over takeExactly (assuming that the 
> propagation issue is
> fixed) is that you don't have to guarantee that the range 
> you're passing it has
> enough elements. If you know that it does, then takeExactly is 
> better.
>
> - Jonathan M Davis

In regards to Take/TakeExactly, it might be best to implement 
both as a common struct? eg:

private struct TakeImplementation(bool Exactly = false)
{...}
alias Take = TakeImplementation!false;
private alias TakeExactly = TakeImplementation!true; 
//TakeExactly is obscure

I mean, at the end of the day, except for "pop", they are 
basically the same functions... I think it would be better to 
have a few static ifs in select locations, rather than 
duplicating everything with subtle differences...