Should this work?

[monarch_dodra]

On Saturday, 11 January 2014 at 12:22:44 UTC, Manu wrote:
> *sigh*
>
> If you can't see value in intuitive design as a basic 
> principle, then my
> points about people on this forum being so disconnected from 
> the world of
> normal programmers is even more true than I thought.
> Particularly if you find the concept so threatening that you 
> need to make
> dumb comments mocking the principle.
>
> I never suggested making technological concessions for the 
> principle, just
> keep it in clear focus while designing your APIs. Do user 
> testing, get
> better feedback, identify common pitfalls.
> I'm just talking about quality, and greater consideration wrt 
> api design
> and more user testing before committing new features to the 
> slate.

In our defense, I've found that whenever I *do* find the APIs 
lacking, it is in contrast to how powerful it is to begin with. 
I've done things in D I would have never *dreamed* of doing in 
C++. You kind of get used to "If it can be done, there's a D 
1-liner for it". However, it's not actually the case. It doesn't 
necessarily mean the API is lacking though (IMO).

Also, the concepts of ranges and built in UTF is relatively new. 
In C++, there are a ton of string operations you are supposed to 
do via iterators and algorithms. However, once you take unicode 
into account, it tends to fall short, and you start realizing 
that a string specific function is necessary (because of UTF) 
when the standard "algorithm" approach used to be correct.

The very fact that a "string" is bidirectional and not random 
access (in terms of codepoints) is also something... you have to 
get used to.