assert semantic change proposal

[David Bregman via Digitalmars-d]

On Monday, 4 August 2014 at 01:17:36 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu 
wrote:
> On 8/3/14, 5:57 PM, David Bregman wrote:
>> On Monday, 4 August 2014 at 00:24:19 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu 
>> wrote:
>>> On 8/3/14, 3:26 PM, David Bregman wrote:
>>>> On Sunday, 3 August 2014 at 22:15:52 UTC, Andrei 
>>>> Alexandrescu wrote:
>>>>> One related point that has been discussed only a little is 
>>>>> the
>>>>> competitive aspect of it all. Generating fast code is of 
>>>>> paramount
>>>>> importance for D's survival and thriving in the market. 
>>>>> Competition in
>>>>> language design and implementation is acerbic and only 
>>>>> getting more
>>>>> cutthroat. In the foreseeable future efficiency will become 
>>>>> more
>>>>> important at scale seeing as data is growing and frequency 
>>>>> scaling has
>>>>> stalled.
>>>>
>>>> Would you care to address the questions about performance 
>>>> raised in
>>>> the OP?
>>>
>>> I thought I just did.
>>
>> You made some generic statements about performance being good. 
>> This is
>> obvious and undisputed. You did not answer any concerns raised 
>> in the
>> OP. I am left to wonder if you even read it.
>
> I did read it. Forgive me, but I don't have much new to answer 
> to it.
>
> It seems you consider the lack of a long answer accompanied by 
> research and measurements offensive, and you also find my 
> previous answers arrogant. This, to continue what I was 
> mentioning in another post, is the kind of stuff I find 
> difficult to answer meaningfully.

Well, I don't want this to devolve to ad hominem level. I never 
used the word offensive by the way, though I will admit to being 
temporarily offended by your description of my carefully 
constructed post as a self important rehash :)

Basically, I didn't find your reply useful because, as I said, 
you were simply stating a generality about performance (which I 
agree with), and not addressing any concerns at all.

If you don't have time to address this stuff right now, I 
completely understand, you are an important and busy person. But 
please don't give a generality or dodge the question, and then 
pretend the issue is addressed. This is what I call arrogant and 
it is worse than no reply at all.

w.r.t the one question about performance justification: I'm not 
necessarily asking for research papers and measurements, but 
based on these threads I'm not aware that there is any 
justification at all. For all I know this is all based on a wild 
guess that it will help performance "a lot", like someone who 
optimizes without profiling first. That certainly isn't enough to 
justify code breakage and massive UB injection, is it? I hope we 
can agree on that much at least!