DIP74 - where is at?

[deadalnix via Digitalmars-d]

On Sunday, 11 October 2015 at 20:35:05 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu 
wrote:
> Could you please point to the document you have already written?
>

For instance, we had a discussion with Walter and Mark that 
eventually yielded DIP25. In there, I made the following proposal 
:

http://pastebin.com/LMkuTbgN

I made several other very detailed proposal. Other did. It's not 
about me here. Others simply abandoned as far as I can tell. I'm 
just a stubborn idiot.

> There's a bit of a stalemate here. So we have:
>
> 1. You say that DIP25 is a failure. More so, you demand that is 
> admitted without evidence. What I see is a feature that solves 
> one problem, and solves it well: annotating a function that 
> returns a reference to its argument. The syntactic cost is low, 
> the impact on existing code is small, and the impact on safety 
> is positive. Walter and I think it is the simplest solution of 
> all considered.
>

It is indeed the simplest. However, experiences that have been 
made and discussed in the forum showed it was often too simple to 
be really useful. I cited example of this, namely the RCArray 
thing and the existence of DIP74.

I don't think the simplicity argument holds water in general as 
long as we don't have the whole thing. DIP25 + DIP74 + ... must 
be measured against the alternative.

> 2. You refuse to write a DIP under the assumption it will not 
> be taken seriously. Conversely if you do write a DIP there is 
> an expectation it will be approved just because you put work in 
> it. I don't think rewarding work is the right way to go. We 
> need to reward good work. The "work" part (i.e. a DIP) is a 
> prerequisite; you can't demand to implement a complex feature 
> based on posts and discussions.
>

No that is inaccurate. I think I have evidence that it won't be 
taken seriously. To start with, there are already several DIP on 
the subject and they are not discussed at ALL. Namely :

http://wiki.dlang.org/DIP35
http://wiki.dlang.org/DIP36
http://wiki.dlang.org/DIP69
http://wiki.dlang.org/DIP71

These do not even register as a blip on the radar. I don't see 
how adding my to the pile would change anything.

There are not considered because DIP25 is "simpler" and you and 
Walter "like it". As long as nothing changes here, there is 
really no point in wasting my time.

> So I'm not sure how we can move forward from here. If you want 
> to discuss DIP74, great, it can be discussed because it exists. 
> My personal opinion on DIP74 is it has holes and corner cases 
> so it seems it doesn't quite hit the spot. One option is to 
> make it work, another is to take a different attack on the 
> problem. But we need the appropriate DIP.
>

Let's start by the beginning: what good design was enabled by 
DIP25 ? As long as none is presented, we can't consider it a 
success.