Proposal for fixing dchar ranges

[Ary Borenszweig]

On 3/12/14, 1:53 PM, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> On 3/12/14, 6:24 AM, Ary Borenszweig wrote:
>> On 3/10/14, 3:30 PM, Walter Bright wrote:
>>> On 3/10/2014 6:35 AM, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
>>>> An idea to fix the whole problems I see with char[] being treated
>>>> specially by
>>>> phobos: introduce an actual string type, with char[] as backing, that
>>>> is a dchar
>>>> range, that actually dictates the rules we want. Then, make the
>>>> compiler use
>>>> this type for literals.
>>>
>>> Proposals to make a string class for D have come up many times. I have a
>>> kneejerk dislike for it. It's a really strong feature for D to have
>>> strings be an array type, and I'll go to great lengths to keep it that
>>> way.
>>
>> You can also look at Erlang, where strings are just lists of numbers.
>> Eventually they realized it was a huge mistake and introduced another
>> type, a binary string, which is much more efficient and works as
>> expected.
>>
>> I think making strings behave like arrays is a design mistake.
>
> Erlang's mistake was different from what you believe was D's mistake.
> There is no comparison to be drawn.
>
> Andrei

What's D's mistake then?